Fig. 1. The schema of our system for evaluation of cerebral microvessel function in the rat bran slice preparations. The brain slice was placed in a recording chamber and superfused with artificial cerebrospinal fluid bubbled with a mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide at 37°C. The image of a parenchymal arteriole was transmitted to a video camera and displayed on a computer. The change in intraluminal diameter of the cerebral arteriole was recorded as the computer image file and, thereafter, was analyzed using the image analysis software.