The Blood-cerebrospinal Fluid Barrier in Uremia

Abstract

Patients suffering from renal failure develop characteristic progressive signs of mental and neuromuscular dysfunction (1-3). The pathogenesis of these symptoms has been extensively studied, and numerous attempts have been made to correlate the symptomatology of uremia with the panorama of biochemical changes accompanying renal failure. The pathologic anatomy of the brain in uremia has also been thoroughly studied (4). Less attention has been paid to the chemistry of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in uremia, and there has been virtually no evaluation of the integrity of the blood-brain barrier in uremic patients. The blood-brain barrier is a collective term for the