Key Points The mechanisms triggering brain damage after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) are pleiotropic and are in many respects distinct from those contributing to ischemic brain injury. The toxicity of extravasated blood toward all structural components of the neurovascular unit represents…
Key Points The neurovascular unit is a structural and functional concept that seeks to integrate microvessel events with those of the neurons, glia, and brain matrix and serves as a framework for fundamental and new findings (e.g., the glymphatic CSF…
Key Points Preconditioning of the brain and other organs is an adaptive response to a noxious but nonlethal experience that activates an intracellular reaction rendering the tissue resistant to a subsequent potentially lethal event. Preconditioning consists of an early and…
Key Points Cerebral ischemia induces neuronal death through necrosis, apoptosis, necroptosis, or ferroptosis. Calcium is a critical factor in ischemic neuronal death. Both glutamate excitotoxicity and nonexcitotoxic mechanisms trigger ischemic cell death through calcium. Oxidative stress contributes to ischemic neuronal…
Key Points The four kinds of ischemia are transient focal, permanent focal, transient global, and permanent global. Small vessel disease of arterioles can involve either blockage or breakage, and in hypertension, both can occur simultaneously. Large vessel carotid artery pathology…
Key Points Since the storage of substrates for energy metabolism is minimal, the brain is normally highly dependent on a continuous supply of oxygen and glucose from the blood for its functional and structural integrity. Control of cerebral blood flow…
Key Points The fundamental processes involved in thrombus formation, thrombus dissolution, and thrombus stability and their relevance to the central nervous system (CNS) are described. The role(s) of endogenous plasminogen activators (PAs, including tissue-type plasminogen activator, urokinase-type plasminogen activator) in…
Key Points Cerebral artery tone is substantially modulated under physiologic conditions by endothelium-derived nitric oxide, by reactive oxygen species, and through hyperpolarization mediated by several types of K + channels. Cerebral vascular function is very sensitive to endothelial dysfunction that…