Summary
Occurrence of diffuse cerebral edema is well documented in both human and experimental hypertensive encephalopathy. Another consistent observation in acute experimental hypertension is an alteration of blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability in multifocal cerebral cortical areas as evidenced by extravasation of trypan blue. The relationship of these areas to the occurrence of edema has not been previously studied. In this work the morphology of areas showing alterations of BBB permeability was studied and compared to that of nonpermeable areas and in normotensive controls.
Acute hypertension was induced in rats by i.v. infusion of angiotensin and permeability alterations identified by i.v. trypan blue. After carefully controlled fixation and embedding, astrocytic perivascular foot processes were measured from electron micrographs taken under standard conditions.
The surface areas (and hence the volume) of astrocytic foot processes were significantly greater in the permeable areas of the hypertensive animals than in the adjacent nonpermeable areas from the same animals and from comparable areas in normotensive animals.
It was concluded that the edema was confined to the permeable areas in this model of acute severe hypertension.
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Nag, S., Robertson, D.M., Dinsdale, H.B., Haas, R.A. (1976). Determination of Cerebral Edema by Quantitative Morphometry. In: Pappius, H.M., Feindel, W. (eds) Dynamics of Brain Edema. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-66524-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-66524-0_7
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