The blood brain barrier is an extremely thin tissue barrier that prevents many molecules and substances from free diffusion or transport into brain tissues or cerebrospinal fluid from the blood stream, brain interarterial fluid thus being separated from circulatory blood. In general, dialysis is any filtration process using a semipermeable membrane to separate large molecules from small molecules based on their permeability through the membrane.
Results indicate the in vitro model has characteristics similar to the blood-brain barrier in situ.
The authors suggest that cocultures of organotypic slices and endothelial cell monolayers are potentially powerful tools for studying biochemical mechanisms regulating blood-brain barrier function and drug delivery to the central nervous system.