Cerebral Water and Electrolytes

Abstract

DESPITE an ever-growing literature on the subject, the basic pathological mechanisms concerned in the effect of oxygen lack on the brain remain largely unknown.¹One reason for confusion in this field has been the synonymous use of the terms anoxia and ischemia. For example, it is still widely held that "anoxia" will under certain conditions produce cerebral edema,^2-5this term implying, in some instances, deprivation of the organism's oxygen supply and, in others, diffuse cerebral ischemia which involves many other factors in addition to anoxia. The importance of this "anoxic edema" concept has immediate and obvious implication for the clinician, since it is recognized that an increase in brain volume may in itself prove fatal by compression of vital structures.⁶ Much of the evidence supporting the anoxic edema hypothesis was based either on histopathological findings now believed to belargely artifactual⁷or indirectly on measurements of