Triple-tracer autoradiography demonstrates effects of hyperglycemia on cerebral blood flow, pH, and glucose utilization in cerebral ischemia of rats.

Abstract

Triple-tracer autoradiography was used to measure topographic changes in local cerebral blood flow, cerebral tissue pH, and local cerebral glucose utilization in hyperglycemic and normoglycemic rats, all of which had undergone occlusion of the middle cerebral artery. More severe and extensive reduction of all three variables was observed in the hyperglycemic than in the normoglycemic rats. In seven normoglycemic rats, significant reduction in local cerebral blood flow (p less than 0.025) was observed in the ischemic but not in the contralateral nonischemic side at the lateral portion of the caudate nucleus and the neocortex. Tissue pH was significantly lower (p less than 0.025) only at the lateral portion of the caudate nucleus in the ischemic side. No significant differences in local cerebral glucose utilization were observed when the two hemispheres were compared. In the ischemic hemisphere of five hyperglycemic rats, the caudate nucleus and the neocortex exhibited significant reduction (p less than 0.0...