Morphological Assessment of Microcirculation - Animal Models of Acute Neurological Injuries: Injury and Mechanistic Assessments - page 468

Chapter 38
Morphological Assessment of Microcirculation
Hiroki Ohkuma and Shigeharu Suzuki
Abstract
Morphological changes in microcirculation during vasospasm have not been fully evaluated. Several techniques
evaluating microcirculation during cerebral ischemia can also be used in microcirculatory assessment of
vasospasm. In this chapter, some of these techniques that seem available for vasospasm are introduced.
Key words: Microcirculation, Arteriole, Casting method, Carbon black, Microangiography
1. Introduction
Since cerebral vasospasm occurs in the major cerebral arteries,
morphological assessment during cerebral vasospasm has focused
on the changes in those arteries. On the other hand, microcircula-
tory vessels can be affected by both subarachnoid hemorrhage itself
and decreased peripheral perfusion pressure due to the luminal
narrowing of vasospastic major arteries. However, microcircula-
tory changes have not been fully examined and remain unclear.
Morphological assessments of microcirculation are divided as
follows.
1. Direct observation of microcirculatory vessel wall
2. Observation of microvascular architecture
3. Evaluation of capillary density
Other than these methods, many in vivo analyses of microcir-
culation have been reported (Table 1 ); however, they are physio-
logical assessment rather than morphological assessment. Therefore,
these in vivo analyses are not introduced here.
In addition, the evaluation of capillary density has been per-
formed in the research for cerebral ischemia. Capillary density can