Propofol inhibits veratrine-stimulated phosphoinositide breakdown in the rat brain.

The intravenous general anesthetic propofol was found to inhibit the phosphoinositide breakdown response to veratrine with an IC50 value of 79 microM. This inhibition was not affected by the addition of flurazepam (0.1, 1, 10 microM) to the assay. The responses to noradrenaline and carbachol were not affected by propofol. It is concluded that inhibition of veratrine-stimulated phosphoinositide breakdown can be used as a simple model system to investigate the potencies at sodium channels of general and as well as local anesthetics.