Qiang Shen1,
Fang Du1, Shiliang Huang1, Yash Vardhan Tiwari1,
Timothy O. Duong2
1Research
Imaging Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio,
San Antonio, TX, United States; 2Research Imaging Institute, UT
Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States
Methylene blue (MB) has unique energy-enhancing and antioxidant properties. It has been recently demonstrated that MB substantially reduces infarct size in transient focal cerebral ischemia in rats by histology. As the next logical step, in this work, we evaluated MBs neuroprotective effects using non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to longitudinally evaluate ischemic evolution. Comparisons were made with functional changes using neurological assessments. Our results showed that MB significantly reduces infarct size and behavioral deficit in the 60-min transient cerebral ischemia in rats. MB salvaged markedly more initial core and mismatch tissues than vehicle.
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