VASOSPASM AND FOCAL CEREBRAL ISCHEMIA

Abstract

The present article deals with the vasoconstrictions that can be produced in the pial arterial vessels of animals by electrical and mechanical stimulation. The purpose of the investigation was mainly to determine, if possible, a method of producing temporary focal cerebral ischemia. Since the middle of the last century many observers have suggested that such ischemia might be the causative factor in epilepsy, migraine, temporary hemiplegias, hypesthesias, aphasias and other transitory neurologic phenomena. No one, however, as far as I know, has produced and studied the effect on the brain of temporary focal cerebral ischemia. In this paper a method is described whereby temporary focal cerebral ischemia may be produced. Such ischemia did not cause any clinical epileptiform manifestations in unanesthetized cats so long as the motor gyrus was not involved in the ischemia. That subclinical epileptiform neuronal activity might have occurred as a result of the ischemia cannot be