Cerebral blood flow monitoring

• Main Author: Manikandan Sethuraman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 2015-12-01
• Series: Journal of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care
• Subjects: cerebral blood flow; monitoring techniques; global and regional
• Online Access: http://www.thieme-connect.de/DOI/DOI?10.4103/2348-0548.165040

Brain is a unique organ of the body that receives highest amount of cardiac output and totally depend on the blood supply for its survival and no reserve of blood flow making it vulnerable for ischaemia. Other important properties of cerebral circulation include autoregulation of blood flow, high oxygen extraction, and selective increase in blood flow to specific brain areas during various functional activities. It is important to understand that systemic and local factors affect the cerebral blood flow and the brain functions. Moreover the alterations in cerebral blood flow (acute or chronic) can be responsible for various symptoms as well as diseases pertaining to the brain. Hence it is important to measure the cerebral blood flow for the diagnostic as well as therapeutic purpose. This review focusses on the various techniques available for monitoring the cerebral blood flow.