Cerebral Blood Flow and Oxygen Consumption in Rat, Measured with Microspheres or Xenon

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Abstract
The cerebral blood flow and, in some rats, the cerebral rate of O2 consumption were measured in 3 groups of male rats. Fractionation of radioisotope-labeled microspheres was used to measure regional cerebral blood flow in 4 parts of the rat brain. The arterial and cerebral venous concentrations of radioactive Xe during desaturation were used to measure the blood flow and O2 consumption of cortex when venous blood was collected from the superior sagittal sinus, or of whole brain when the transverse sinus was sampled. The regional cerebral blood flow measured with microspheres had a large standard error reflecting the technical difficulty of this method. The cerebral blood flow measured with Xe was higher when venous blood was samples from the superior sagittal sinus than when sampled from the transverse sinus, but cerebral O2 consumption rates were similar. The difference reflected the greater trauma involved in the superior sagittal approach and possible extracerebral contamination present in the transverse sinus approach.