Oxygen transport in the cerebral cortex of rats breathing a hyperoxic gas mixture]

Oxygen dissolved in the arterial blood plasma at a high pressure was shown to pass into the brain tissue from the finest arterioles. Therefore only a thin layer of the tissue immediately adjacent to these vessels is affected by the increased oxygen tension pO2. Permeability of the arteriole walls for oxygen protects the neurones against the high pO2. A special physiological feature of the oxygen transport during normobaric hyperoxia in the brain tissue involves very "steep" gradients of the pO2 in tissues and of the transferring the oxygen fraction from arterioles to venules through the tissues. The findings allow to compare distribution of the pO2 over the whole brain vessel network with that during inhalation of air or pure oxygen.