title: Therapeutic Hypothermia Does Not Mitigate Iron-Induced Injury in Rat.
abstract: Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is often a devastating stroke, and there are no clinically proven neuroprotective treatments. Considerable research points to iron toxicity as a leading contributor to secondary damage after ICH. Iron, released from degraded erythrocytes, catalyzes free radical production, thereby causing cell death in the ensuing days and weeks. Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is a potential neuroprotective strategy for ICH, but results from animal studies are inconsistent and generally weaker than that found in ischemia models. Thus, we examined whether TH (∼33°C for 24-72 hours) would specifically mitigate iron toxicity, which we modeled by infusing 3.8 μg of FeCl2 in 30 μL of sterile saline into the striatum of rats. Rats were subjected to whole-body cooling beginning 1 hour after FeCl2 infusion. Use of TH reduced (p = 0.025) the small bleed caused by FeCl2 infusion (∼6 μL). However, TH did not lessen FeCl2-induced edema at 24 and 72 hours postinfusion, nor were behavioral impairments (e.g., walking) or brain injury (at 7 and 28 days) attenuated by TH. These results suggest that TH does not directly protect against iron toxicity, which indicates that this is not a means by which TH improves the outlook after ICH.
authors.affiliation: 1 Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Canada .
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wowk
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Psychology, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Canada .
authors.forename: Yonglie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: 1 Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Canada .|2 Department of Psychology, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Canada .
authors.forename: Frederick
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Colbourne
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002543:Cerebral Hemorrhage / Q000628:therapy*; D005296:Ferrous Compounds; D007036:Hypothermia, Induced; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley
chemical_list: D005296:Ferrous Compounds; C029451:ferrous chloride