Thinning, movement, and volume loss of residual cortical tissue occurs after stroke in the adult rat as identified by histological and magnetic resonance imaging analysis

Phagocytosis executes delayed neuronal death after focal brain ischemia

“…In the former case, areas at the edge of the infarct (the penumbra) may revert to healthy tissue when phagocytosis is blocked; in the latter case, brain areas around the infarct normally atrophy, but this may be prevented when phagocytosis is blocked. Importantly, the delayed atrophy of areas around the infarct has been described in human stroke (46,47) and animal models of stroke (2).…”

“…In the ischemic area where the reduction of blood flow is most pronounced (the core), neuronal death follows rapidly as a result of energy depletion. However, in areas of partial ischemia (the penumbra) and in areas around the infarct (peri-infarct), neurons stressed by ischemia or its consequences are lost only after some delay, providing an opportunity for therapeutic interference hours or days after stroke (1,2).…”

Beyond the silence: Bilateral somatosensory stimulation enhances skilled movement quality and neural density in intact behaving rats

“…A summary of the measurement procedure for cortical thickness (adapted from [22,23]), using 10 representative histology sections, is shown in Fig. 2A and a. Briefly, four points (medial, central, lateral, and ventrolateral) on ten coronal sections (planes 10,13,17,21,24,27,32,36,41,45) from each brain were selected based on Paxinos and Watson [24].…”

“…For each point, a vector was considered from the tangent of the outer edge to the inner edge of the cortex. ImageJ software 1.47b (http://imagej.nih.gov/ij; NIH, USA) was used to record up to eight measurements of cortical thickness from each coronal section, four from each hemisphere [23].…”

“…A cytoarchitectonic measure of the cerebral cortex [23,25,26] was also used to reveal any potential morphological changes in different stimulation groups. Although the assessment of the cortical thickness did not show any difference between stimulation groups, further histological examination suggested that only rats in the group BiAno1 increased neural density measured by grey value index (GVI, [25]).…”