title: Ionizing radiation as preconditioning against transient cerebral ischemia in rats.
abstract: Induction of ischemic tolerance (IT), the ability of an organism to survive an otherwise lethal ischemia, is the most effective known approach to preventing postischemic damage. IT can be induced by exposing animals to a broad range of stimuli. In this study we tried to induce IT of brain neurons using ionizing radiation (IR). A preconditioning (pre-C) dose of 10, 20, 30 or 50 Gy of gamma rays was used 2 days before an 8 min ischemia in adult male rats. Ischemia alone caused the degeneration of almost one half of neurons in CA1 region of hippocampus. However, a significant decrease of the number of degenerating neurons was observed after higher doses of radiation (30 and 50 Gy). Moreover, ischemia significantly impaired the spatial memory of rats as tested in Morris's water maze. In rats with a 50 Gy pre-C dose, the latency times were reduced to values close to the control level. Our study is the first to reveal that IR applied in sufficient doses can induce IT and thus allow pyramidal CA1 neurons to survive ischemia. In addition, we show that the beneficial effect of IR pre-C is proportional to the radiation dose.
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Physiology, Institute of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, P. J. Šafárik University, Šrobárova 2, 040 01 Košice, Slovak Republic. kokosova.natalia@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Natália
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kokošová
authors.forename: Viera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Danielisová
authors.forename: Beňadik
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Smajda
authors.forename: Jozef
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burda
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002546:Ischemic Attack, Transient / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D019194:Ischemic Preconditioning / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D011836:Radiation Tolerance / Q000528:radiation effects; D011839:Radiation, Ionizing; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D065853:Spatial Learning / Q000528:radiation effects