Arginine vasopressin (AVP) is frequently used in patients under the risk of brain injury. It has been shown to induce brain injury after ischemia and reperfusion in in vivo animal models. We determined the effect of vasopressin on the brain injury after ischemia-reperfusion using in vitro model.

Cerebellar brain slices were prepared from adult Sprague-Dawley rats. They were then subjected to simulated ischemia (oxygen-glucose deprivation) for 20 min in the absence (control) or presence of vasopressin (5, 10, 50, 100, 500 pg/ml). After being recovered in oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid for 5 h, they were fixed for morphologic examination to determine the percentage of live Purkinje cells.

There were no differences in the survival rate of Purkinje cells among the control and vasopressin groups.

Vasopressin at concentrations studied has no direct effect on brain ischemia-reperfusion injury.