Neonatal stroke is a significant cause of early brain injury requiring a translational model with consistent focal injury patterns and high reproducibility in order to enable study. This study describes the detailed surgical procedure for creating a non-hemorrhagic, unilateral focal ischemia-reperfusion injury in full-term-equivalent rodents.
Difficulty
advanced
Total time
~90–120 min per animal (surgical procedure + recovery monitoring)
Model organism
Rat P10 (postnatal day 10)
Biosafety
BSL-1
Steps
1
Occlude middle cerebral artery via surgical access
Perform cranial exposure and transient occlusion of the MCA using surgical technique to induce unilateral focal ischemia in the neonatal rat brain.
▶ 01:03
2
Restore blood flow and initiate reperfusion
Release MCA occlusion to allow cerebral reperfusion, completing the ischemia-reperfusion injury paradigm.
▶ 05:15
3
Evaluate lesion extent at chronic timepoint
Assess unilateral injury involving striatum and cortex at 4 weeks post-stroke using imaging or histology to confirm reproducible focal damage.
▶ 06:54
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