Mechanisms influencing the permeability of the blood-brain barrier

✍ Scribed by Becker, Ronald A. ;Aird, Robert B.

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1955
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 765 KB
• Volume: 46
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0095-9898
• DOI: 10.1002/jcp.1030460107

✦ Synopsis

of Californma at Sun Francisco A review of the literature dealing with the blood-brain barrier indicates that numerous attempts have been made in the past to influence the passage of various substances into the brain. Much of this work has been of a qualitative nature as, for example, most of the work with the supravital dyes. Another large segment of studies has been concerned with isolated attempts to modify the penetration of a single substance into the central nervous system. Since i t has been shown that a certain drug or treatment may have variable and even opposite permeability effects, depending upon the substance that is used as a tracer agent (Stern and Lokchina, '2'7 ; Stern, Kassil, and Lokchina, '57 ; Hurst and Davies, '50), it would appear essential that cerebrovascular permeability be studied using a variety of test molecules.

The present report deals with a series of studies in which we have attempted to modify the permeability of the Hoodbrain harrier by physiological and pharmacological methods as judged by two members of the sulfonamide group, namely, sulfapyridine and sulfanilamide, used as tracer agents. Theso agents were used inasmuch as a previous study had shown the rates of permeation of these compounds into the brain to he widely divergent (Goldsworthy, Aird, and Kecker, '54).