Introduction Arteriosclerosis is a generic term used for describing hardening and thickening of arteries. Atherosclerosis is the most common form and is responsible for several common clinical manifestations such as stroke, coronary artery diseases, peripheral arterial disease, and aortic aneurysm.…
Acknowledgments This work was supported by NIH grant R01 NS071050 (JL), and VA merit award I01RX000655 (JL). Neovascularization After Cerebral Ischemia and Hypoxia Although the adult brain vascular network becomes quiescent after the completion of brain development, the remodeling of…
Introduction Brain pathophysiology is influenced by a dynamic balance between deleterious and beneficial responses to the initial insult . Stroke and brain injury trigger a wide spectrum of neurovascular perturbations, glial activation, and secondary neuroinflammation that may all amplify neuronal…
Introduction Tissue repair is as old as tissues themselves, as it can be observed in the most primitive multicellular organisms. However, evolution confers tissue complexity and cellular specialization at a price, which includes less effective repair capacity. As the most…
Introduction Eicosanoids have long been known to participate in cerebrovascular injury, starting in the early 1970s . Eicosanoids are derivatives of the 20-carbon polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) arachidonic acid (AA); the more generalized term for oxidized versions of PUFAs is…
Introduction Peptides and Neuropeptides: Definitions Peptides are biologically occurring short chains of amino acid monomers linked by amide bonds. Arbitrarily, peptides are distinguished from proteins on the basis of size: they contain approximately 50 or fewer amino acids. Neuropeptides are…
Introduction This chapter updates the data supporting the hypothesis that adenosine (Ado) is a metabolic regulator of cerebral blood flow (CBF). A metabolic regulator is a substance whose concentration reflects and is linked to cellular metabolism. If a factor is…
Introduction The brain circulation is generally believed to be controlled by (1) chemical factors as perivascular pH; (2) autoregulation, a response to changes in systemic blood pressure; and (3) intrinsic mechanisms within the brain via neurovascular units and the microvasculature.…
Introduction The brain requires oxygen and glucose to meet its metabolic demands, and cerebral blood flow (CBF) is its supply channel. The brain has high energy requirements but limited storage capacity, which means persistent CBF is critical for its proper…
Introduction The effects of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), oxygen (O 2 ), and nitric oxide (NO) on the cerebrovasculature are the most pronounced, easily demonstrated, and reproduced phenomena observed in the cerebral circulation. Studies in man and animals, using…