Cerebral hemodynamics of experimental cerebral embolization.

THE cerebral hemodynamies of cerebrovaseular disease are not well understood. One limitation to their physiologic evaluation is the marked variability of human cerebrovascular disease. Important variations include the nature of the acute episode (i.e., thrombosis, embolus, hemorrhage with or without cerebral infarction) ; the amount of underlying cerebrovascular disease; the presence and degree of complicating diseases, such as congestive heart failure, and the length of time between the occurrence of an acute cerebrovascular accident and the time of study. Some of these variations can be obviated by the study of experimentally produced vascular accidents in an appropriate laboratory animal. This study deals with the changes in cerebral blood flow, cerebrovascular resistance and cerebral oxygen consumption in dogs occurring as a result of experimentally produced cerebral emboli.