Distribution of Oxygen Tension on Microvessels and in Tissue of Rat Brain Cortex at Severe Arterial Hypocapnia

Arterial hypocapnia (AH), induced by voluntary or forced hyperventilation of the lungs, is accompanied by a decrease in cerebral blood flow (due to an increase in the arteriole tone) and an increase in the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen. As a result, an oxygen supply to cortical tissue decreases and zones with a critically low oxygen tension (pO 2 ) are formed in brain tissue. The distribution of pO 2 in cerebral cortex during AH has not been studied enough. The aim of the work was to evaluate the effectiveness of oxygen supply to brain tissue at the level of arterial and venous microvessels at AH. To do this, the following tasks were set: (1) to study the distribution of the pO 2 on the arterial and venous microvessels of the rat cerebral cortex; (2) to analyze tissue pO 2 profiles near the walls of these microvessels. On anesthetized Wistar rats under conditions of forced hyperventilation (P a CO 2 = 17.1 ± 0.7 mm Hg), the distribution of oxygen tension on the wall of pial and radial arterioles with a lumen diameter of 7–70 µm and on the wall of pial and ascending venules with a lumen diameter of 7–300 µm was studied. In tissue, near the wall of cortical arterioles and venules with a lumen diameter of 10–20 µm, tissue pO 2 profiles were measured. Measurements of pO 2 during spontaneous breathing of the animal with air served as a control. All pO 2 measurements were made using platinum polarographic microelectrodes with a tip diameter of 3–5 µm. Visualization of the electrode tip and microvessels was carried out using a LUMAM-K1 microscope with epiobjectives of the contact type. This work presents for the first-time direct measurements of pO 2 on the walls of arterioles and venules of the rat cerebral cortex and in tissues at different distances from the walls of these microvessels at AH. It has been shown that AH results in significant decrease in the oxygen supply to cerebral cortex, that is manifested by a significant drop of the pO 2 ’s on venous microvessels and in tissue in the immediate vicinity of the studied microvessels. It has been shown, that the role of arterioles as a direct source of oxygen to brain tissue, is significantly reduced during arterial hypocapnia. Forced hyperventilation results in significant deterioration of oxygen supply to cerebral cortex, despite elevated pO 2 values in the systemic arterial blood and in blood of systemic cerebral veins (sagittal sinus).