The use of vitamin A-deficient diets and jugular vein ligation to increase intracranial pressure in chickens (Gallus gallus)

A technique was developed to record intracranial cerebrospinal fluid pressure (iCSFp) in chicks and mature chickens. Using that procedure, 2 methods were found to effect a significant elevation in intracranial pressure: 1) feeding a purified diet to roosters for 40 d containing 25% of the bird's requirement for vitamin A, and 2) ligating both jugular veins in birds. The purified diet significantly reduced plasma retinol levels from 1.080 to 0.046 μg/mL, and iCSFp was significantly elevated from 63.0 to 106.0 mmH ₂O (P ≤ 0.05). Two limitations for using hypovitaminosis A diets were capillary fragility and a cisterna magna that did not develop to the size of that structure in birds of the same age fed control diets with adequate vitamin A content. The second procedure, a reversible surgical technique, showed that within 2.5 h from jugular vein ligation, intracranial pressure rose to 109.7 mmH₂O, comparable with levels attained following feeding a vitamin A deficient diet to roosters. Bilateral clamping of the jugular veins overnight resulted in an elevation of iCSFp to 127 ± 8.86 mmH ₂O. Results suggest that the chicken may be a useful animal model to investigate intracranial hypertension and its accompanying headaches known to occur in humans.