The effect of cerebral lymphatic blockage on cortex regional cerebral blood flow and somatosensory evoked potential

Disputes on the significance of cerebral lymphatic drainage pathways under physiological and pathophysiological conditions still exist. The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the influence of cerebral lymphatic blockage on cerebral blood flow and cortex somatosensory evoked potential. Wistar rat cerebral lymphatic blockage models were established by removing cervical lymphatic nodes after obstructing their input and output tubes. Animals were divided randomly into a sham-operated group and a cerebral lymphatic-blockage group. Regional cerebral blood flow in different regions of the cortex were detected using a laser-Doppler flowmeter probe, and cortex evoked potential was detected using an electromyogram and evoked potential instrument before the operation, then 1 day, 5 days and 7 days after the operation. Results showed that the sham operation had no obvious effect on regional cerebral blood flow and the latency of somatosensory evoked potential. From 1 day to 7 days after cerebral lymphatic obstruction, regional cerebral blood flow in different cortical regions decreased markedly (P < 0.01). Latency of somatosensory evoked potential was significantly delayed on the 5th and 7th day after blockage of cerebral lymphatic drainage (P < 0.01). We concluded that cerebral lymphatic drainage may play an important role in maintaining the equilibrium of the internal environment of the brain, and blockage of this pathway results in cerebral ischemia.