Cerebral Blood Flow in the Rat

¹ From the Department of Physiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

The cerebral uptake of iodoantipyrine (I¹³¹) was measured in anesthetized rats as a function of time after a single intravenous injection. The cerebral content stabilized in 7–9 seconds and remained constant for 64 seconds indicating that the brain and body had the same extraction ratio for the label. The cerebral blood flow fraction therefore corresponded to the fractional uptake of iodoantipyrine by the brain. The cerebral blood flow was calculated as the product of the cardiac output and the cerebral flow fraction. The perfusion rate of the brain was found to be 0.51 ml/gm/min. in female rats.