According to the World Health Organization (WHO), worldwide, 15 million people suffer stroke
each year. Stroke, i.e. the sudden and severe reduction of blood flow to a brain region, is the second
leading cause of death and the third leading cause of disability. Stroke is also a leading cause of
dementia and depression. A focal brain damage inevitably causes a drastic alteration of the whole
complex neural network that characterizes the affected area. Although stroke damage can be
devastating, many patients survive the initial event and display a spontaneous recovery, which can be
further increased by rehabilitation therapy. Recovery is possible due to a reorganization of spared areas
and connections, i.e. neuroplasticity.
Functional recovery is highly variable in stroke patients and strongly depends on many factors (lesion
location and volume, etc.). Currently, there are no ways of predicting either the degree or time course
of recovery in individual subjects. For these reasons, the identification of biomarkers is crucial in the
design and interpretation of stroke rehabilitation trials. Therefore, the aim of this work is the
development of new prognostic and therapeutic tools in preclinical models.
In this study I exploit a mouse model of stroke, the Middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO),
that shows a higher variability and is thus closer to the human condition. I conducted experiments to
evaluate the occurrence of motor deficits using a battery of behavioral tasks: gridwalk test, skilled
reaching test, and retraction task in the M-platform (a robotic device that permits to quantitatively
evaluate several kinetic/kinematic parameters related to forelimb movement). Moreover, the
ischaemic lesion and electrophysiological alterations was analysed by means of histology and
electroencephalographic signals (EEG) respectively. I studied how these mechanisms are altered by
stroke, combining the data all these parameters, in order to define possible biomarkers that predict
long-term motor recovery.
The results obtained, permit new opportunities for therapeutic approaches after stroke
allowing the definition of more effective rehabilitation paradigms that can be translated into clinical
practice
