[Structural peculiarities of the human cerebral communicating arteries and their repercussion in encephalic vascular pathology].
BACKGROUND
The cerebrovascular accidents are one of the most frequent causes of morbimortality. Most of them are caused for the break of aneurysms in communicating arteries. The weak structure of these vessels explain the reason of these accidents.


OBJECTIVE
The reason of this paper is study the organization of communicating arteries as cause of this fragility. Material and methods. The material of this study is composed of 61 human cerebral communicating arteries, grouped in decades. The study has been carried out by histological routine.


RESULTS
In general the structure of cerebral communicating arteries is characterized for the thinness and irregularity of the wall. In the childhood the internal elastic membrane and tunica media show thicker, while in young and adult people appear elastic fibers and reticulin as well as smooth muscle cells in tunica media. In adulthood (50 60 years) collagen in adventicia occupies tunica media, and adventicia is weaked. There are frequent media defects in these communicating arteries, that are usually repaired for conjunctive tissue stopper with abundance of collagen fibers. Starting from 4th decade the internal elastic membrane shows a great number of fenestrae through muscle and fiber tissue of media occupying subintimal space. Doubtless media defects mean the most severe threat of vascular outbreak.


CONCLUSIONS
The structural evolution with the age of communicating arteries, with predominance of collagen over elastin and reticulin, could be their reason of fragility.
Whyte
J
J
Dpto. de ciencias Morfológicas; Universidad de Zaragoza. Facultad de Medicina, Zaragoza, 50009, España. jwhyte@posta.unizar.es
Torres
A
A
Cisneros
A I
AI
Sarrat-Torres
R
R
Sarrat-Torreguitart
R
R
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000378:metabolism; D002536:Cerebral Arteries / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003094:Collagen / Q000032:analysis; D004547:Elastic Tissue / Q000648:ultrastructure; D004549:Elastin / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D002532:Intracranial Aneurysm / Q000209:etiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012155:Reticulin / Q000032:analysis; D020521:Stroke / Q000209:etiology; D017539:Tunica Intima / Q000648:ultrastructure; D017540:Tunica Media / Q000648:ultrastructure
D012155:Reticulin; D003094:Collagen; D004549:Elastin