CEREBRAL BLOOD FLOW PRECEDING AND ACCOMPANYING EXPERIMENTAL CONVULSIONS

Recent investigations have done much to strengthen the theory that epileptic convulsions may have a vascular origin. The early observation of Leonard Hill that convulsions can be produced by interfering with the blood supply to the brain has been abundantly confirmed. An accumulation of evidence, brought forward chiefly by Forbes and Wolff1and by Cobb,2points to the existence of a nervous mechanism which, when stimulated, produces a constriction of the cerebral blood vessels. The question arises as to whether the convulsions produced in animals by certain convulsants frequently used in the experimental study of epilepsy are produced through the mechanism of diminished cerebral blood flow. I have investigated the effect on cerebral blood flow of five commonly employed convulsants. METHODS The blood flow recorder used has been previously described.3It consists essentially of a needle with an electrically heated tip, the temperature of which is read by