Monitoring Extracellular Amino Acid Neurotransmitters and hROS by In Vivo Microdialysis in Rats: A Practical Approach

The microdialysis technique has proved to be a powerful neuropharmacological tool for the measurement of extracellular levels of neurotransmitters in brains of freely moving animals. However, care in its application is essential if reliable results are to be obtained. More recent developments have made it possible to detect the release of highly reactive oxygen species (hROS) in the same systems as those used for determining amino acid neurotransmitter release. This chapter is intended to help in obtaining reliable and reproducible results by describing practical aspects of in vivo microdialysis in the rat, as applied to the determination of hROS and amino acid release in the same experiment. The presentation and validation of the results obtained are also discussed.