Protective mechanisms of cerebral ischemia: Hypothermia and ischemic preconditioning.

摘要

Ischemic stroke is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Therapy aims to alter the severity, susceptibility, and duration of the insult. The current clinical therapy of acute thrombolysis can alter the severity and the duration; however, the susceptibility of the brain remains unchanged. Targeting susceptibility is thus an important goal of experimental stroke research. Hypothermia induces indefatigable neuroprotection (ie. increased tolerance) to ischemia, even when administered at delayed time points. In mice, hypothermia results spontaneously following ischemia, and improves behavioural and histological outcome.; Current efforts to alter the susceptibility of the brain are focused on ischemic preconditioning (IPC), which has been shown to reduce infarct size in rodents. However, it is unclear whether this treatment results in altered susceptibility to ischemia or a change in the severity and duration of the insult. The current study observed improvement in regional cerebral blood flow in the cohort of mice that had ischemic preconditioning, showing that this improvement is due to reduced severity of ischemia.