Effects of mild hypercapnia on somatosensory evoked potentials in experimental cerebral ischemia

In a previous report, the authors demonstrated the effectiveness of mild hypercapnia in enhancing decreased perfusion flow in ischemic, non-infarcted brain tissues. However, the previous work lacked in verification of improvement of suppressed brain function. Therefore, this report was attempted to evaluate the effect of hypercapnia on somatosensory evoked potential (SEP), using the similar ischemic model as previously. The results showed that mild hypercapnia of 43 to 55 mm Hg range was beneficial not only for enhancing decreased perfusion flow but also for restoring suppressed SEP. This report seems to be the first publication which verifies a presence of correlation between local cortical blood flow (LCBF) and SEP under mild hypercapnia in mildly to moderately ischemic brain tissues.