title: A focal embolic model of cerebral ischemia in rats: introduction and evaluation.
abstract: Cerebral thromboembolism is the most common type of acute stroke in the clinical setting. In the present study, we have described a focal embolic model of cerebral ischemia in rat. Cerebral ischemic injury in two different sizes was induced by injection of two different volumes of pre-formed clots into the middle cerebral artery (MCA). Neurological deficits were assessed at 1 and 24 h, respectively, after the MCA embolization. The brain infarction was evaluated with 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining at 72 h following embolic stroke. The incidence of gross hemorrhage was also identified on the TTC-stained brain sections. This study consisted of two groups. In the first group 10 microl of pre-formed clot was injected into MCA (n=10), and in the second group 5 microl of clot was injected (n=10). Embolizing a pre-formed clot resulted in an infarction in the territory irrigated by the MCA. Embolization with the different volume of clots resulted in different sizes of brain infarction, 32.1+/-2.9% (mean+/-S.E.) in the 10-microl group versus 23+/-4.5% (mean+/-S.E.) in the 5-microl group (P<0.05). The infarction size as well as neurological deficits correlated well with the volume of the clot injected. These results thus show that with the procedure described here a reliable and reproducible ischemic injury is produced in the brain. The model is relevant to thromboembolic ischemia in patients, and may offer a useful tool to investigate mechanisms underlying ischemic brain injury. It may also be used to test thrombolytic agents in ischemic brain injury.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, 533 HMRC, Neurology Laboratory, Division of Neurology, University of Alberta Hospital, T6G 2B2, Edmonton, Canada. chenxu@ualberta.ca
authors.forename: C X
authors.initials: CX
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shuaib
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D020244:Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D020521:Stroke / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*