Blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a specialized barrier that protects the brain microenvironment from toxins and pathogens in the circulation and maintains brain homeostasis. The principal sites of the barrier are endothelial cells of the brain capillaries whose barrier function results from tight intercellular junctions and efflux transporters expressed on the plasma membrane. This function is regulated by pericytes and astrocytes that together form the neurovascular unit (NVU). Several neurological diseases such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease (AD), brain tumors are associated with an impaired BBB function. Assessment of the BBB permeability is therefore crucial in evaluating the severity of the neurological disease and the success of the treatment strategies employed. We present here a simple yet robust permeability assay that have been successfully applied to several mouse models both, genetic and experimental. The method is highly quantitative and objective in comparison to the tracer fluorescence analysis by microscopy that is commonly applied. In this method, mice are injected intraperitoneally with a mix of aqueous inert fluorescent tracers followed by anesthetizing the mice. Cardiac perfusion of the animals is performed prior to harvesting brain, kidneys or other organs. Organs are homogenized and centrifuged followed by fluorescence measurement from the supernatant. Blood drawn from the cardiac puncture just before perfusion serves for normalization purpose to the vascular compartment. The tissue fluorescence is normalized to the wet weight and serum fluorescence to obtain a quantitative tracer permeability index. For additional confirmation, the contralateral hemi-brain preserved for immunohistochemistry can be utilized for tracer fluorescence visualization purposes.

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Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder that causes unprovoked and recurrent seizures which according to WHO affects approximately 50 million people worldwide. Functional magnetic resonance images (MRI) help to identify certain affected areas of the brain, namely, the gliosis and hippocampal volume loss. These losses cause complex epilepsy, and is known as hippocampal sclerosis or Mesial Temporal Sclerosis (MTS). This work presents the development of a Computer Aided Diagnosis CAD system software package) that can be used to identify the characteristics and patterns of MTS from brain magnetic resonance images. The image processing techniques involve texture analysis, statistical features, evaluation of the 3D Region of interest (ROI), and threshold analysis. The software allows the automatic evaluation of the degeneration of hippocampal structures, hippocampal volume and signal intensity. We will describe and demonstrate the software (which can currently be accessed on GitHub). It is expected that this tool will be useful in new neurology/radiology specialists and can serve as a secondary diagnosis. However, it is necessary to validate the software system qualitatively and quantitatively in order to get more effectiveness and efficiency in a real-world clinical application.