Autoregulation of Cerebral Blood Flow during Normocapnia and Hypocapnia in Dogs

The effect of hypocapnia on autoregulation of cerebral blood flow (CBF) and the lower limit of autoregulation (LLA) was determined in dogs anesthetized with nitrous oxide (66%) and halothane (0.2%, end-expired concentration). CBF and cerebral vascular resistance (CVR) were determined during both normocapnia and hypocapnia (PaCO2 21-22 mmHg) at control cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) and after reducing CPP (by hemorrhage) to 80%, 60%, 50%, and 40% of control. At control CPP hypocapnia decreased CBF from 75 +/- 5 to 48 +/- 3 ml.100 g-1.min-1 (mean +/- SEM, P less than 0.05). During both normocapnia and hypocapnia CVR decreased and CBF did not change as CPP was reduced to 60% of control. When CPP was reduced to 50% or 40% of control, CVR remained decreased and CBF fell sharply. The LLA during hypocapnia, 61 +/- 2% of control CPP, was not different than that during normocapnia, 59 +/- 3% of control CPP. Below the LLA the CBF-CPP slopes differed from zero but did not differ between hypocapnia and normocapnia. Hypocapnia does not produce a substantial shift of the LLA, and over the range of CPP values studied here, autoregulatory cerebral vasodilation only partially abolishes hypocapnia-induced cerebral vasoconstriction. The results suggest that when cerebral autoregulation is intact and in the absence of cerebrovascular disease, hypocapnia does not reduce global CBF to a level that is likely to produce ischemia and remains a useful therapeutic treatment so long as CPP remains above the LLA.