Diffusion-limited, but not perfusion-limited, compartmental models describe cerebral nitrous oxide kinetics at high and low cerebral blood flows.

This study aimed to evaluate the relative importance of diffusion-limited vs. perfusion-limited mechanisms in compartmental models of blood-tissue inert gas exchange in the brain. Nitrous oxide concentrations in arterial and brain efferent blood were determined using gas chromatographic analysis during and after 15 min of nitrous oxide inhalation, at separate low and high steady states of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in five sheep under halothane anesthesia. Parameters and model selection criteria of various perfusion- or diffusion-limited structural models of the brain were estimated by simultaneous fitting of the models to the mean observed brain effluent nitrous oxide concentration for both blood flow states. Perfusion-limited models returned precise, credible estimates of apparent brain volume but fit the low CBF data poorly. Diffusion-limited models provided better overall fit of the data, which was best described by exchange of nitrous oxide between a perfusion-limited brain compartment and an unperfused compartment. In individual animals, during the low CBF state, nitrous oxide kinetics displayed either fast, perfusion-limited behavior or slow, diffusion-limited behavior. This variability was exemplified in the different parameter estimates of the diffusion limited models fitted to the individual animal data sets. Results suggest that a diffusion limitation contributes to cerebral nitrous oxide kinetics.