[Neuroradiology of embryonal brain development. Comparative studies on the prenatal development of brain vessels and liquor spaces in mammals and humans].

In more than 400 mammalian and human embryos and fetuses of an age of gestation of 4 weeks up to term, the prenatal development of the cerebral vessels and ventricles was studied by radiological techniques. Postmortal arterio- and phlebographies demonstrated the complex transformations of the leptomeningeal arteries and veins. The capillary growth within the brain itself was examined by a combination of microangiographic and histological techniques, and a clear morphological correlation between the differentiation of the nervous tissue and the invasion of the capillaries was shown. By ventriculography, the changes of the size and shape of the ventricular system were documented, and quantitative development diagrams of the cerebral ventricles could be established. On the basis of these morphological findings, in vivo, angiographies were carried out in fetal cats (in utero) and also in chicken embryos of an age of gestation of 5--14 days. It could be shown, that the average circulatory speed of the blood stream within the carotid arteries increases parallel to the enlargement of the embryo and its arteries, whereas the circulatory time and the number of heart beats during the period of carotid opacification does not change to a great extent.