Minireview: microdialysis of the blood outflowing from the brain

In past several years the in vivo blood microdialysis technique has been widely used for a variety of pharmacological and physiological applications to study, monitor and analyze endogenous substances, such as neurohormones, and exogenous substances such as therapeutic drugs and their metabolites. The technique is being described in detail and discussed, in which microdialysis probes were implanted into the jugular vein, blood was flowing freely around the dialysis membrane. The probe was perfused at a very low flow rate (approximately 1-2 microL/min)with the solution resembling closely the composition of body fluid. In this laboratory (Department of Experimental and Clinical Physiology, Institute of Physiology and Biochemistry, Medical University of Lodz) the technique of in vivo blood minidialysis was worked out in small laboratory animals (rat, guinea-pig, hamster) and used to demonstrate that neurohypophysial hormones can be released into the blood outflowing from the region of the sella turcica and blood dialysate from the femoral vein.