Pre-stroke surgery is not beneficial to normotensive rats undergoing sixty minutes of transient focal cerebral ischemia

Bayliss, Michaela; Trotman-Lucas, Melissa; Janus, Justyna; Kelly, Michael E.; Gibson, Claire L.

Abstract

Experimental stroke in rodents, via middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO), can be associated with a negative impact on wellbeing and mortality. In hypertensive rodents, pre-stroke craniotomy increased survival and decreased body weight loss post-MCAO. Here we determined the effect, in normotensive Sprague-Dawley rats following 60 minutes MCAO, with or without pre-surgical craniotomy, on post-stroke outcomes in terms of weight loss, neurological deficit, lesion volume and functional outcomes. There was no effect of pre-stroke craniotomy on indicators of wellbeing including survival rate (P = 0.32), body weight loss (P = 0.42) and neurological deficit (P = 0.75). We also assessed common outcome measures following experimental stroke and found no effect of pre-stroke craniotomy on lesion volume as measured by T2-weighted MRI (P = 0.846), or functional performance up to 28 days post-MCAO (staircase test, P = 0.32; adhesive sticker test, P = 0.49; cylinder test, P = 0.38). Thus, pre-stroke craniotomy did not improve animal welfare in terms of body weight loss and neurological deficit. However, it is important, given that a number of drug delivery studies utilise the craniotomy procedure, to note that there was no effect on lesion volume or functional outcome following experimental stroke.

Citation

Bayliss, M., Trotman-Lucas, M., Janus, J., Kelly, M. E., & Gibson, C. L. (2018). Pre-stroke surgery is not beneficial to normotensive rats undergoing sixty minutes of transient focal cerebral ischemia. PLoS ONE, 13(12), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209370

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 12, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Dec 28, 2018
• Publication Date: Dec 28, 2018
• Deposit Date: Apr 30, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: May 14, 2019
• Journal: PLOS ONE
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 12
• Article Number: e0209370
• Pages: 1-15
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209370
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1883965
• Publisher URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0209370
• Contract Date: May 14, 2019