The effect of desipramine, imidazole, thioridazine and trifluoperazine on blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability after a 24 hour cold lesion was studied in rats. Changes in BBB permeability were determined using a quantitative horseradish peroxidase (HRP) assay. The four drugs tested did not alter the quantity of HRP in the cortex of control animals, or in the contralateral cortex of test anima...

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) was encapsulated into liposomes in order to protect it from enzyme degradation in vivo and promote its permeability across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). In this study, GDNF conventional liposomes (GDNF-L) and GDNF target sterically stabilized liposomes (GDNF-SSL-T) were prepared. The average size of liposomes was below 90 nm. A primary model o...

Cortical spreading depression (CSD) involves a slowly-propagating depolarization wave in the cortex, which can appear in numerous pathophysiological conditions, such as migraine with aura, stroke, and traumatic brain injury. Neurons and glial cells are also depolarized transiently during the phenomena. CSD is followed by a massive increase in glutamate release and by changes in the brain microc...

Introduction: Development of brain edema following focal cerebral ischemia exacerbates primary ischemic injury. Blood brain barrier (BBB) opening is an important part of edema named as vasogenic brain edema. In this study, quantitative alterations of BBB permeability is experimentally evaluated using transient focal cerebral ischemia in the rat. Methods: Two groups of male rats (ischemic and sh...

Disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) during acute hypertension may contribute to hypertensive encephalopathy. In this study we tested the hypothesis that, in chronic hypertension, vascular changes might influence the susceptibility of the BBB to disruption. Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and normotensive rats (WKY), 3-4 months of age, were anesthetized and acute hypertension was p...

An important component of the pathogenic process of multiple sclerosis (MS) is the blood-brain barrier (BBB) damage. We recently set an in vitro model of BBB, based on a three-cell-type co-culture system, in which rat neurons and astrocytes synergistically induce brain capillary endothelial cells to form a monolayer with permeability properties resembling those of the physiological BBB. Herein ...

PURPOSE Microvascular endothelial integrity is important for maintaining the blood-brain barrier (BBB). However, subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) disrupts this integrity, making the BBB dysfunctional-an important pathophysiological change after SAH. Angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1) and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) regulate microvascular permeability by balancing each other's expression. METHODS This study inves...

Introduction: Stroke is currently the third leading cause of death and disability in North America [1]. Blood–brain barrier (BBB) disruption following ischemia–reperfusion is associated with clinically important consequences including edema and hemorrhagic transformation (HT). Previous data on BBB permeability changes after acute ischemic stroke (AIS) is limited to the first several hours and v...

Diabetic complications are characterized by the dysfunction of pericytes located around microvascular endothelial cells. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) exhibits hyperpermeability with progression of diabetes. Therefore, brain pericytes at the BBB may be involved in diabetic complications of the central nervous system (CNS). We hypothesized that brain pericytes respond to increased brain thrombin...

There are a number of different experimental methods for ex vivo assessment of blood-brain barrier (BBB) opening based on Evans blue dye extravasation. However, these methods require many different steps to prepare the brain and need special equipment for quantification. We here report a novel, simple, and fast semiquantitative algorithm to assess BBB integrity ex vivo. The method is particular...