Cerebrospinal fluid production and its relationship to cerebral metabolism and cerebral blood flow

¹ Neurosurgical Research Laboratory of The Children's Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

The cerebrospinal fluid production has been studied in the dog under conditions of maximum obtainable flow rates from the cisterna magna. Under these conditions the fluid had constant composition and was assumed to represent the cerebrospinal fluid in the intact state. Cerebral blood flow and cerebral oxygen consumption were measured by the method of Kety and Schmidt. The only significant correlations found were with oxygen consumption when the CSF flow rate was in terms of brain weight and with cerebral blood flow and cerebral vascular resistance when CSF flow was in terms of choroid plexus weight. A combined regression equation was calculated which satisfactorily accounted for the observed CSF flow: CSF cu mm/min. = .128 x CMRO₂ x brain wgt. + 0.15 x CVR x choroid plexus wt. This suggested separate physiological processes, one correlated with oxygen metabolism and one with hydrodynamic factors of the cerebral blood flow. The data demonstrated that the choroid plexus alone could not have accounted for the entire CSF flow and some must have come from another source, presumably the brain.