The Nature of Fluorocarbon Enhanced Cerebral Oxygen Transport

This brief communication is intended to epitomize our on-going research relating blood and brain fluorocarbon levels to Polarographic oxygen availability (aO2) as recorded from healed platinum electrodes in the brain of conscious rabbits. The current from such cathodes becomes stable in about ten days and remains steady for months, or even years, with mean currents of about 600 nanoamperes (nA) and oscillations at 10 per minute with an amplitude of up to 300nA. When oxygen is administered the aO2 current increases to about 900nA. Following the administration of a variety of fluorocarbon emulsions and oxygen breathing the aO2 current is further increased even though cerebral venous (sagittal sinus) pO2 is not increased. The results presented here, based upon several hundred hours of continuous recording of aO2 currents, were selected to emphasize this apparent paradox.