Microvascular damage in the cortex of cat brain from middle cerebral artery occlusion and reperfusion.

Oxygen-dependent quenching of phosphorescence provides an extraordinarily powerful method for examining the effects of ischemia/hypoxia on the cortex of the brain. Video camera technology has permitted imaging, through a window in the skull, of the phosphorescence of an oxygen probe, Pd meso-tetra-(4-carboxyphenyl)-porphine, bound to albumin in the blood of anesthetized animals. Images of the phosphorescence taken at different times after the flash of excitation light were used to generate high-resolution two-dimensional maps of the oxygen pressure. These maps show that cortical oxygenation is spatially heterogeneous and that there is dynamic time-dependent modulation of regional oxygen pressures. When the middle cerebral artery was occluded, the region for which it supplied blood became hypoxic, the severity of the hypoxia varying among animals. Release after 60 min of occlusion resulted in a rapid rise of the oxygen pressure to above-normal levels followed by onset of a delayed period of hypoxia. This period is characterized by generally low tissue oxygen pressures with local regions of more severe hypoxia. The delayed period of hypoxia appears to result from damage to the microvasculature, and this microvascular damage is proposed to be an important determinant of the extent of irreversible brain damage.