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Project

Sensory stimulation versus electrical brain stimulation in awake rodent models of ischemic stroke

An acute stroke episode usually incurs severe functional deficits in varied degree. In clinic practice, a plenty of stroke patients, performing re-perfuse unsuccessfully and late or ineligible for re-perfusion therapy, are rendered disable and even consigned to wheelchair at their remaining lives, which inevitably reduce their quality of lives and weigh a heavy burden on their families and care-givers. Thereby, an independent or supplementary therapy are necessitated. Contralateral sensory stimulation emerges and naturally acts as a promising treatment option. Whisker stimulation was reported in rodents to markedly reduce infarct size following temporary middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo). We hypothesize that the protective effects of early evoked neuronal activity occur via enhanced perfusion despite the occlusion, by unknown neurovascular mechanisms. Since sensory stimulation has major translational potential as supplemental and independent pre-hospital straightforward, non-pharmacological treatment, it is important and meaningful to make a further investigation on it. Our main goal is to address the translational issues by further applying sensory stimulation to different rodent stroke models on awake condition which is more clinically relevant than most previous studies performed under anesthesia. Moreover, we propose to decipher the internal intrinsic mechanisms and give some new insights involving the effects of sensory stimulation

Date:12 Jun 2019 →  12 Jun 2023
Keywords:Stroke, Sensory stimulation, Whisker stimulation
Disciplines:Behavioural neuroscience
Project type:PhD project