Cerebrospinal fluid production by the choroid plexus and brain

The production of cerebrospinal fluid and the transport of (24)Na from the blood to the cerebrospinal fluid were studied simultaneously in normal and choroid plexectomized rhesus monkeys. Choroid plexectomy reduced the production of cerebrospinal fluid by an average of 33 to 40 percent and the rate of appearance of (24)Na in the cerebrospinal fluid and its final concentration were proportionately reduced. In both normal and plexectomized animals, (24)Na levels were found to be markedly greater in the gray matter surrounding the ventricles and in the gray matter bordering the subarachnoid space. That sodium exchanges in these two general areas of the brain may be linked to the formation of the cerebrospinal fluid is discussed here.     

Sympathetic nervous control of cerebrospinal fluid production from the choroid plexus

The rabbit choroid plexus, responsible for the bulk production of cerebrospinal fluid, is well supplied by sympathetic nerves emanating in the superior cervical ganglia. Electrical stimulation of these nerves markedly reduces production of cerebrospinal fluid, measured by [14C] inulin dilution during ventricular perfusion, whereas sympathetic denervation enhances the rate of formation.     

Leukotriene C4 transport by the choroid plexus in vitro

Nanomolar concentrations of peptidoleukotrienes evoke sustained cerebral edema and arterial constriction. Peptidoleukotrienes are thus considered to play an important role in eliciting cerebral edema after cerebral ischemia and vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage. It was hypothesized that the choroid plexus, the locus of the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier, might minimize the vasoactivity of locally generated or systemically derived leukotrienes by transporting leukotrienes from cerebrospinal fluid into the blood. Consistent with this hypothesis, leukotriene C4 in vitro was transported into and released from isolated rabbit choroid plexus by a system that was specific, energy-dependent, probenecid-sensitive, and depressed by cold temperatures. The accumulation of leukotriene C4 in the choroid plexus was not dependent on tissue binding or metabolism of leukotriene C4.     

Purines: active transport by isolated choroid plexus

Purines are actively accumulated by the isolated rabbit choroid plexus by a specific saturable transport mechanism. In vivo this system probably serves to excrete the purine catabolities of brain from cerebrospinal fluid into blood.     

Dopamine: release from the brain in vivo by amantadine

After dopamine stores in the caudate nucleus of cats were labeled with [(3)H]dopamine, the ventricular system was perfused with artificial cerebrospinal fluid. The addition of amantadine to the perfusing fluid caused a doserelated increase in the concentrations of [(3)H]dopamine appearing in the perfusion effluent. Subthreshold concentrations of amantadine also enhanced the efflux of [(3)H]dopamine induced by electrical stimulation of the caudate nucleus.     

Enkephalin-like material elevated in ventricular cerebrospinal fluid of pain patients after analgetic focal stimulation

Enkephalin-like activity has been measured in the ventricular cerebrospinal fluid of patients with intractable pain. Electrical stimulation of periventricular brain sites resulted in significant decrease in persistent pain in these subjects. This analgesia, which was blocked by naloxone in 80% of the cases, was accompanied by a significant rise in ventricular enkephalin-like activity, as measured by two different methods. The results present evidence of in vivo release of enkephalin-like material in humans and suggest that stimulation analgesia may be partially due to this release.     

双侧脑室引流、冲洗结合腰穿救治高血压脑出血破入全脑室患者的临床观察

目的 观察双侧脑室冲洗、引流结合腰穿治疗高血压脑出血破入全脑室的有效性和安全性.方法 将高血压脑出血破入全脑室的83例分成双管组(n=57)和单管组(n=26),双管组采用双侧脑室引流、冲洗结合腰穿的方法治疗(57例);单管组用单管引流治疗(26例),将两组治疗结果进行统计学分析和比较.结果 双管组:良好和中残35例(61.4%)、重残11例(19.3%)、植物生存2例(3.5%)、死亡9例(15.8%),单管组分别为6例(23.1%)、6例(23.1%)、1例(3.8%)、13例(50.0%),以双管组的疗效为优(P＜0.01);且双管组的病死率明显低于单管组(P＜0.01).双管组的脑脊液廓清时间为3～6(4.2±1.3)d,明显短于单管组的6～15(8.6±2.1)d(P＜0.01).结论 双管引流比单管引流更容易保持引流通畅,脑脊液廓清迅速,并发症减少,能降低病死率,提高生存质量,是一种安全、有效治疗全脑室出血的方法.     

Brain barrier tissues: end organs for atriopeptins

Little is known about the pathophysiology of cerebral edema and other disturbances of water balance that involve the barrier tissues at the interface of blood and brain. The present experiments show that these barrier tissues contain receptors and second messenger systems for atriopeptins, recently identified cardiac peptides involved in peripheral water regulation. They also show that atriopeptins can alter the rate of cerebrospinal fluid production. Because the blood-brain and blood-cerebrospinal fluid barriers are involved in normal water movements in the central nervous system, these studies suggest that brain barrier tissues may be important end organs for the atriopeptins and that atriopeptins could have therapeutic application to disorders of water balance in the central nervous system. An isolated, purified population of atriopeptin receptor cells, obtained from choroid epithelium, was used in these experiments. This cell population may provide a valuable model system for investigating the intracellular biochemical mechanisms through which atriopeptins exert their actions.     

Two morphologically distinct blood-brain barriers preventing entry of cytochrome c into cerebrospinal fluid

After intravenous injection, cytochrome c does not enter the cerebrospinal fluid. In most areas of the brain, the marker is prevented from leaving cerebral vessels by the capillary endothelium. In the choroid plexus, the marker passes freely out of capillaries into the extracellular space. However, it does not traverse tight junctions between epithelial cells and is rapidly incorporated into mnembrane-bound vesicles within the cell cytoplasm. Thereafter, cytochrome c is apparently removed by lysosomal degradation. These data suggest that there are at least two morphologically distinct blood-brain barriers to cytochrome c and that pinocytosis may be a mechanism for intracellular degradation rather than transcellular transport.     

Elevated beta-endorphin in cerebrospinal fluid after electrical brain stimulation: artifact of contrast infusion?

Beta-Endorphin-like immunoreactivity in cerebrospinal fluid was assayed in 11 patients receiving electrical stimulation of the brain for chronic pain. Immunoreactivity increased dramatically after contrast ventriculography prior to stimulation. No further elevations were observed after stimulation. The magnitude and time course of elevations were identical after placement of electrodes either in the thalamus or in the periventricular gray matter. These results suggest that previous findings of stimulation-induced elevation of beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity in cerebrospinal fluid are attributable to an artifact of contrast ventriculography.     

Ependymal cilia: distribution and activity in the adult human brain

Examination of 150 to 200 samples of the ependymal lining of the ventricles of nine adult human brains obtained 2(1/2) to 6 hours post-mortem revealed cilia in at least 20 separate sites in the four ventricular cavities. In seven of the brains ciliary motion was evident, and in two of these it was wide-spread and rapid. It seems likely that the adult human ventricular ependyma is ciliated throughout. Currents having distinct patterns are induced in the ventricles of animal brains by ciliary motion, and such currents probably exist in man. A local mechanism for the rapid movement of cerebrospinal fluid is therefore present.     

Biogenic amine metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid of depressed and manic patients

A reduction in 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid in cerebrospinal fluid was found in depressed and manic patients both while they were symptomatic and also after treatment. The concentration of homovanillic acid was initially reduced and then tended to increase after treatment.     

Indole-3-acetic acid in human cerebrospinal fluid: identification and quantification by mass fragmentography

Indole-3-acetic acid has been identified in human cerebrospinal fluid by the gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric technique called mass fragmentography. A specific and sensitive method for quantitative determination of indole-3-acetic acid down to 2 nanograms per milliliter of cerebrospinal fluid has been developed. Samples of cerebrospinal fluid from 24 patients with depression contained 6.1 +/- 3.1 (range 2.6 to 15.8) nanograms of indole-3-acetic acid per milliliter.     

Multiple sclerosis: correlation between immunoglobulin-G in cerebrospinal fluid and brain

There is a positive correlation between the concentration of immunoglobulin-G in plaques of demyelination due to multiple sclerosis (as well as in white matter of normal appearance) and the concentration of this globulin in the cerebrospinal fluid. The tentative conclusion drawn from these results was that, in patients with multiple sclerosis, the increase in immuno-globulin-G in the cerebrospinal fluid is a reflection of an excess of this globulin in the brain.     

Endogenous anticonvulsant substance in rat cerebrospinal fluid after a generalized seizure

Cerebrospinal fluid taken from rats subjected to electroshock-induced seizures and injected into the cerebral ventricles of rats that had not been shocked increased the seizure threshold of the recipients. The anticonvulsant activity of the donor cerebrospinal fluid was antagonized by opioid antagonists and enhanced by peptidase inhibitors. These results suggest the existence of an endogenous anticonvulsant substance in rat cerebrospinal fluid, possibly opioid in nature, which is activated as a consequence of a seizure and which may play a critical role in postseizure inhibition.     

Alpha-ketoglutaramate: increased concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients in hepatic coma

alpha-Ketoglutaramate, a deaminated metabolite of glutamine not previously identified in biological tissues, was measured in the cerebrospinal fluid of human subjects and found to be increased three- to tenfold in patients with hepatic coma. When perfused into the cerebral lateral ventricles of rats, alpha-ketoglutaramate (10 mM) depressed the animals' nocturnal locomotor activity, and at higher doses induced circling behavior and myoclonus. The concentration of alpha-ketoglutaramate in cerebrospinal fluid appears to be a reliable diagnostic indicator of hepatic coma, and its accumulation may contribute to the pathogenesis of this disease.     

Elevated concentrations of CSF corticotropin-releasing factor-like immunoreactivity in depressed patients

The possibility that hypersecretion of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) contributes to the hyperactivity of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis observed in patients with major depression was investigated by measuring the concentration of this peptide in cerebrospinal fluid of normal healthy volunteers and in drug-free patients with DSM-III diagnoses of major depression, schizophrenia, or dementia. When compared to the controls and the other diagnostic groups, the patients with major depression showed significantly increased cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of CRF-like immunoreactivity; in 11 of the 23 depressed patients this immunoreactivity was greater than the highest value in the normal controls. These findings are concordant with the hypothesis that CRF hypersecretion is, at least in part, responsible for the hyperactivity of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis characteristic of major depression.     

Transport of 1-aminocyclopentanecarboxylic acid from feline cerebrospinal fluid

1-Aminocyclopentanecarboxylic acid was cleared from cerebrospinal fluid of the cat by a saturable mechanism. Clearance was inhibited by naturally occurring neutral amino acids. Carrier transport may explain the low ratio of amino acid in spinal fluid to that in plasma.     

Pineal vasotocin: release into cat cerebrospinal fluid by melanocyte-stimulating hormone release-inhibiting factor

The intracarotid injection of both synthetic melanocyte-stimulating hormone release-inhibiting factor (MIF) and purified MIF prepared from bovine hypothalami induces arginine vasotocin release into cerebrospinal fluid of cats and significantly decreases the pineal arginine vasotocin content at 5 minutes after the injection. The present results demonstrate an extrapituitary endocrine effect of synthetic and purified bovine MIF.     

Norepinephrine: release from brain by d-amphetamine in vivo

After injection of H(3)-norepinephrine into the left lateral cerebral ventricle of cats, the lateral and third cerebral ventricles were perfused with an artificial cerebrospinal fluid. Addition of d-amphetamine to the perfusion fluid caused a significant increase in the concentration of H(3)-norepinephrine in the effluent.