Figure 1

Change of cerebral blood flow, morphology, cell death rate, escape latency, SOD activities and MDA contents in I/R rat. (A) Average cerebral blood flow measured before, during, and after global cerebral ischemia in rats. The level of CBF before ischemia was set to 100%. CBF decreased rapidly to 30% of the baseline during the ischemia phase and increased to 75% of the pre-ischemic level during the reperfusion phase. (B) Effects of I/R on morphological change of rat hippocampal neurons. Representative microscopic photographs of hematoxylin-eosin–stained rat hippocampal CA1 neurons at different reperfusion time points following 20 min of global ischemia. Sections are show at 400× power. (C) Group data showing the cell death rate. Normal neurons in sham operated group is well structured, closely arranged, neurons in ischemia group showed obviously karyopyknosis and swelling, the injury aggravated along with the reperfusion and peaked at 15 d. (D) The escape latency of rats in the sham and operated groups. I/R rats had a significantly longer mean latency to find the platform compared with the sham group. (E) SOD activities (E1) and MDA contents (E2) in the hippocampus at the different reperfusion time after 20 min of global ischemia in rats. SOD activity significantly decreased after I/R injury, and reached maximal reduction at 7 d, MDA content progressively increased from 30 min to 15 d after and reached a peak level at 7 d. (Compared with the sham group, ^*P < 0.05, ^**P < 0.01).