Abstract #2151

The Effect of Amyloid on Infarct Size in a Rat Model

Simona Nikolova¹, Zareen Amtul², David Cechetto², Ting-Yim Lee³, Vladimir Hachinski⁴, Robert Bartha^2,3

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.