[Blood flow evaluations on normal spinal cord of rabbit and the effect of aortic ligation by radioactive microsphere...

The microsphere technique was used to determine precise distribution of the spinal cord blood flow (SCBF) in rabbit and measurement of the SCBF was also carried out after the ligation of the thoracic aorta to examine the mechanism of collateral circulation. The results showed higher values of the SCBF in the cervical (42.3 +/- 17.1ml/100g/min) and lumbar spinal cord (42.2 +/- 25.5ml/100g/min), compared with the thoracic cord (36.6 +/- 15.5ml/100g/min). The segmental analysis of SCBF distribution revealed relatively higher in the lower cervical, lower thoracic and lumbar segments but showed lower values in the upper thoracic segments. The SCBF was also detectable only in 2-4 thoracic segments below the ligation level of the thoracic aorta, which suggests that sufficient pathway of collateral circulation is not plausible in the thoracic cord of rabbit.