The effect of chronic osmotic disturbance on the concentrations of cations in cerebrospinal fluid.

1. Adult cats were rendered hypo- and hypernatraemic by peritoneal dialysis. These states were maintained for periods of 2-5 days.2. The concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid (c.s.f.) of the cations, potassium, calcium and magnesium all decreased in the hyponatraemic animals and increased in the hypernatraemic animals. These shifts in c.s.f. cation concentrations did not relate to plasma changes in the same cations, which were often in the opposite direction.3. The relations of the cation concentrations to c.s.f. sodium were not linear and, in the cases of calcium and magnesium, the relevant cation concentration related better to the square rather than the first power of the c.s.f. sodium concentration.4. Brain water changed much less in the hypo- and hypernatraemic animals than might be anticipated from the shifts in blood osmolarity, plasma sodium concentration and muscle water.5. Isotonicity of the fluids in brain with blood plasma and c.s.f. appeared to be largely maintained by loss or gain of sodium and chloride ions by this tissue.6. The c.s.f. results may be partly due to a constant influx of the cation in question being diluted with more formed c.s.f. in hyponatraemia and less c.s.f. in hypernatraemia, but the deviations from linearity in the plots of c.s.f. cation against c.s.f. sodium suggest the influence of other factors.