Testosterone is Sufficient to Impart Susceptibility to Isoflurane Neurotoxicity in Female Neonatal Rats.

Background: Volatile anesthetic exposure during development leads to long-term cognitive deficits in rats which are dependent on age and sex. Female rats are protected relative to male rats for the same exposure on postnatal day 7. Here we test our hypothesis that androgens can modulate chloride cotransporter expression to alter the susceptibility to neurotoxicity from GABAergic drugs using female rats with exogenous testosterone exposure.