Amnon Bar-Shir1, Noam Shemesh1, Revital Nossin-Manor2, Yoram Cohen1
1School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; 2Diagnostic Imaging, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
The present study longitudinally examines the effect of SPG-stimulation of ischemic rats on NAA levels, DWI characteristics and behavioral tests. It was found that SPG-stimulation treatment of rats after 2h of t-MCAO, started 182h after the induction of stroke, improves NAA levels in the ischemic hemisphere of the treated rats and also prevented deterioration of DI values computed from DWI data, 28 days after t-MCAO. These results were corroborated by behavioral examinations. The fact that treatment was started 182h after the t-MCAO shows that electrical SPG-stimulation can potentially extend the therapeutic window for the treatment of ischemic stroke.