Postmortem effect of pentobarbital anesthetic on survival of adult cortical neurons in primary culture.

We determined whether pentobarbital anesthetic is required to culture postmortem adult rat neurons. Pentobarbital treatment resulted in two-fold increases in neuron survival in culture after 2 and 4 h postmortem compared to non-anesthetic controls, but was not as effective as simple postmortem treatment on ice and therefore not essential.