Simona Nikolova1, Zareen Amtul2,
David Cechetto2, Ting-Yim Lee3,
1Robarts Research
Institute, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western
Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; 2Department of Anatomy,
University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; 3Robarts
Research Institute, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University
of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; 4London Health Sciences
Centre, London, ON, Canada
The current work investigates the combined effect of Alzheimers and stroke in the rat brain. Four groups of 6 animals participated in the study- a group of animals with a ventricular Aβ injection, a group of animals with a combined stroke and Aβ injection and two groups of control animals (separate control groups for Aβ and stroke were used). The animals underwent CT and MRI examination on day 9, 19 and 29 after surgery. Histology was performed on the brains at the end of the study. Preliminary data suggests that ventricle enlargement and tissue damage were present in the combined Aβ and stroke group. Ventricle enlargement was also present in the Aβ only group, but not in the stroke group only. Alzheimer's disease is characterised by loss of neurons and synapses in the cerebral cortex and certain subcortical regions. Therefore, the observed ventricle enlargement could be a result of atrophy of adjacent brain tissue.