Introduction Restoration of blood flow following ischemic stroke can be achieved by means of thrombolysis or mechanical recanalization. However, for some patients, reperfusion may exacerbate the injury initially caused by ischemia, producing a so-called "cerebral reperfusion injury". Multiple pathological processes are involved in this injury, including leukocyte infiltration, platelet and complement activation, postischemic hyperperfusion, and breakdown of the blood-brain barrier. Methods/results and conclusions Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide extensive information on this process of injury, and may have a role in the future in stratifying patients' risk for reperfusion injury following recanalization. Moreover, different MRI modalities can be used to investigate the various mechanisms of reperfusion injury. Antileukocyte antibodies, brain cooling and conditioned blood reperfusion are potential therapeutic strategies for lessening or eliminating reperfusion injury, and interventionalists may play a role in the future in using some of these therapies in combination with thrombolysis or embolectomy. The present review summarizes the mechanisms of reperfusion injury and focuses on the way each of those mechanisms can be evaluated by different MRI modalities. The potential therapeutic strategies are also discussed.

The true programmed mechanisms of delayed neuronal death induced by global cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury remain incompletely characterized. Autophagic cell death and programmed necrosis are 2 kinds of programmed cell death distinct from apoptosis. Here, we studied the death mechanisms of hippocampal cornu ammonis 1 neuronal death after a 20-minute severe global ischemia/reperfusion injury in young adult rats and the effects of 3-methyladenine (3-MA), a widely used inhibitor of autophagy. The morphological changes detected by electron microscopy, together with the activation of autophagy, transferase-mediated UTP nick end-labeling-positive neurons, and delayed death, demonstrated that cornu ammonis 1 neuronal death induced in this paradigm was programmed necrosis. No significant activation of caspase-3 after injury was detected by Western blot and immunohistochemistry. Treatment with 3-MA provided time-dependent protection against cornu ammonis 1 neuronal death at 7 days of reperfusion when it was administered before ischemia; administration 60 minutes after reperfusion was not beneficial. The redistribution of the lysosomal enzyme cathepsin B after injury was inhibited by 3-MA administered before ischemia, suggesting that this might be another important mechanism for the protective effect of 3-MA in ischemic neuronal injury.

Background: Activation of microglia and astrocytes, a prominent hallmark of both aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD), has been suggested to contribute to aging and AD progression, but the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. Methods:We performed RNA-seq analyses on microglia and astrocytes freshly isolated from wild-type and APP-PS1 (AD) mouse brains at five time points to elucidate their age-related gene-expression profiles.Results: Our results showed that from 4 months onward, a set of age-related genes in microglia and astrocytes exhibited consistent upregulation or downregulation (termed "age-up"/"age-down" genes) relative to their expression at the young-adult stage (2 months). And most age-up genes were more highly expressed in AD mice at the same time points. Bioinformatic analyses revealed that the age-up genes in microglia were associated with the inflammatory response, whereas these genes in astrocytes included widely recognized AD risk genes, genes associated with synaptic transmission or elimination, and peptidase-inhibitor genes.Conclusions: Overall, our RNA-seq data provide a valuable resource for future investigations into the roles of microglia and astrocytes in aging-and amyloid-β-induced AD pathologies.