Contribution of brainstem edema to neurophysiologic deterioration in the cat infusion edema model

These results show that infusion edema produces a significant increase in brainstem tissue water similar to the distribution seen after traumatic injury. The increased brainstem water of 0.24 cc is equivalent to a brainstem volume rise of 7.26% and was sufficient to cause a marked reduction in the PVI and sustained elevation of the ICP. Despite the ICP rise, somatosensory and brainstem potentials are only mildly affected and return to normal within 8 hr. The fact that severe fluid percussion injury results in obliteration of BAER immediately after impact would suggest that the neurologic deterioration seen in the fluid percussion model of injury is due to direct structural damage of the tissue, which was received at the moment of impact, and not to the compressive effect of the developing brainstem edema at levels achieved in these experiments (7.62% swelling). As in other mechanical models, edema results in secondary compression of the tissue and contributes to the general brain swelling, which if unabated could lead to tentorial herniation and death. In these infusion studies, we must conclude that in some cases, mild secondary compression was sufficient to affect other control centers and produce systemic failure at levels of edema that do not result in alteration of evoked potentials. This might explain the deaths of those animals that occurred during the infusion period in which brainstem potentials remained intact.