Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a complex disease, altering numerous intracellular cascades which affect neuronal, vascular, and glial elements of the brain. Structural damage is coupled with cellular- and systems-level functional impairment. The array of assessments used in stat ...

Persistent neurogenesis occurs in discrete regions of the brain through neonatal to adult period, including the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) (J Comp Neurol 124:319–335, 1969) and the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricle (J Comp Neurol 137:433–458, 1 ...

Neurobehavioral assessment plays an important role in both adult and neonatal models of cerebral hypoxia–ischemia (NHI), since the final goal of such basic research is to identify new information leading towards novel approaches in human medical treatment. In animal NHI model, behavi ...

Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic (H-I) brain injury is a leading cause of perinatal mortality. Inflammation contributes substantially to the pathogenesis of perinatal H-I brain injury. The inflammatory response in neonatal H-I model could be assessed by measuring the expression of infl ...

Neonatal hypoxia–ischemia (HI) induces a series of intracellular signaling events, including destructive and protective mechanisms. The destructive events include neuronal membrane depolarization, excitotoxicity, free radical injury, overactivation of calcium- ...

Damages to the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and white matter (WM)/oligodendrocytes (OLs) are typical pathological findings in infants or animal models of neonatal hypoxia–ischemia (NHI). These injuries in turn produce severe neurological consequences, such as germinal matrix hem ...

Cell death in the immature brain can be studied in many ways using morphological and biochemical markers. Essential requirements for cell death and degeneration assessment techniques in the brain include sufficient sensitivity and the ability to differentiate between apoptotic ...

Focal cerebral ischemia is the commonest type of human strokes. Several animal models of focal brain ischemia have been developed to resemble human strokes closely. Infarct volume is an essential indicator of how severe the ischemic damage is 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) ...

Angiogenesis could be interpreted as a natural defense mechanism, helping to restore oxygen and nutrient supplies to the affected brain tissue. It has been demonstrated that angiogenesis is involved in functional recovery after ischemic stroke. This chapter introduces the classic ...

Neurogenesis is the generation of new neurons. In hippocampal dentate gyrus and olfactory bulb, which usually are referred to as the neurogenic region in the mammalian brain, new neurons are developed daily throughout their lifetime. In the non-neurogenic region of the brain, neurogenes ...

Focal cerebral ischemia induces a complex array of cellular states, which significantly influence and ultimately are controlled by molecular changes. While certainly some of these changes occur at the nucleotide or lipid level, many processes require significant modification of ...

A common type of ischemic stroke, focal cerebral ischemia causes nonselective tissue damage in the ischemic area, including damage to both gray and white matter. White matter is made up of neuronal axons and their surrounding oligodendrocytic myelin sheath, and is susceptible to ischemic i ...

Ischemic stroke in humans often results in acute and delayed neuronal death, as well as a wide range of chronic neurological deficits. In order to understand neuronal loss and neurological deficits after brain ischemia, several animal models have been established, including global and fo ...

Global cerebral ischemia (GCI) can cause selective neuronal damage in a variety of brain regions, including striatum, hippocampus, cortex, and so on. Hematoxylin and eosin and Nissl stains are commonly used histological methods for the morphological assessments of the GCI-viable cel ...

Cerebral ischemic models present highly complex scenarios affecting the interplay of multiple systems, cellular populations, signaling pathways, and molecular events. As the brief introduction to Parts I–III, Chap. 1 provides a general overview of the nature of the three primary cer ...

A wide variety of approaches have been used to help restore locomotor function after spinal cord injury (SCI). In the rat model, these range from biological techniques such as cell transplantation and axon regeneration to retraining methods such as activity-based rehabilitation. Corr ...

Experimental spinal cord injuries can be categorized as being mild, moderate, or severe, based upon the extent of tissue damage and the severity of functional deficit incurred. The level of injury and unilateral or bilateral nature of an injury also greatly impact upon whether deficits invol ...

Inflammation and autoimmune responses after spinal cord injury (SCI) are complex processes involving sequential cellular and molecular changes in cells of the innate and adaptive immune systems. In preclinical animal models of SCI and human SCI, immune responses have been implicat ...

The H-reflex, the electrical analog of the spinal stretch reflex (SSR) is mediated largely by a wholly spinal, primarily two-neuron pathway. Because this pathway is influenced by descending pathways from the brain, these spinal reflexes can be operantly conditioned. Motivated by a paradi ...

Electrophysiological assays following experimental spinal cord injury objectively evaluate neurological function in the rodent. Major descending and ascending tracts can be monitored noninvasively using motor-evoked potentials and somatosensory-evoked poten ...