Discussion

Abstract

Arterial and venous trunks penetrate the cerebral cortex perpendicularly and terminate a different levels of depth. These stem vessels are connected by a three-dimensional network of capillaries (Pfeifer 1928) that lack a preferential orientation (Eins and Bär 1978). To characterize a capillary net by morphometric means, parameters like the collective length of vessels, the vascular diameter and surface area, and the number, position, and angles of branchings should be estimated. In the present study, the counting of vascular branchings must be omitted in the routine measurements because this feature is not unequivocally recognized by television image analysis. The number and position of branchings in a microvascular net, however, are very important for the perfusion properties and the oxygen supply of the surrounding tissue (Grunewald 1969). Without considering the branchings of a capillary net the functional interpretation of morphometric data is limited.