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Updated: Jul 24, 2026

Isolation of Cerebral Capillaries from Fresh Human Brain Tissue
Published on: September 12, 2018
Mechanisms of blood-brain barrier breakdown
1Department of Clinical Science, Institute of Ophthalmology, London, UK.
Abstract:
The functional status of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) must be taken into account when designing and interpreting brain imaging techniques. The integrity of the BBB is affected in many diseases of the brain, with the potential involvement of a number of different but poorly understood cellular mechanisms. Factors known to disrupt the BBB experimentally include arachidonic acid and the eicosanoids, bradykinin, histamine and free radicals. These active compounds, released in pathological tissue, may alter cytosolic calcium levels and induce second messenger systems leading to an alteration in BBB permeability. Extravasation of plasma proteins may occur via disrupted tight junctions, stimulation of fluid-phase vesicular transport or the formation of transcellular pores or channels.
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