Related Experiment Videos
Contralateral cerebral blood flow velocity changes after intracarotid amobarbital injection
T Pfefferkorn1, C Hundt, S Arnold
1Department of Neurology, University of Munich, Germany. thomas.pfefferkorn@med.uni-muenchen.de
Background And Purpose:
The intracarotid amobarbital procedure (IAP) leads to a prompt decrease in ipsilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA) mean blood flow velocity (MFV). Little is known about contralateral MFV changes.
Methods:
The authors investigated bilateral MCA MFV using transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD) in 8 patients with epilepsy undergoing IAP. Measurements were excluded from analysis if angiography revealed any signs of interhemispheric cross-flow.
Results:
With in 64 seconds after amobarbital injection, ipsilateral MFV decreased to a mean of 44.4% +/- 7.5% of baseline value (P < .01). In the absence of interhemispheric cross-flow and within 68 seconds, contralateral MFV decreased to 83.1% +/- 7.9% (P < .01).
Conclusions:
The observed decrease of contralateral MFV was not caused by amobarbital cross-perfusion. A possible underlying mechanism may be interhemispheric deafferentation.