Study Of Neuronal Piasticity After Focal Cerebral Ischemia Penumbra In Rats

Objetive The study is to observe the effect of early rehabilitation on the functional outcome and measure the expression of mRNA including GAP-43 and P38 which are associated with neurite plasticity after focal cerebral ischemia penumbra in the rats and study its molecular mechanism.Methods Wistar rats were subjected to 120minutes of middle cerebral artery occlu-sion(MCAO) and different time of reperfusion . Brains from MCAO rats without any treatment ,with physical'training , as well as those with control sham-operate and normal were processed by in situ hybridization with monoclonal antibodies against GAP-43?P38. Animals were examined everyday using two different behavioral tests to assess sen-sorimotor function.Results There has been a decrease in neural cell in the ischemic penumbra. 14 days after stroke,astrocyte hypertrophy and proliferation occurred, there were improvements in the score of behavioral test training compared with their control respectively. In situ hybridization show the increase of mRNA expression in GAP-43, P38 in ischemic penumbra in functional training P<0. 05Conclusion The ischemic penumbra is constantly changing; The functional training can improve behavioral outcome of MCAO rats . The function enhancement may be partly due to the upregulalation of the expression mRNA in GAP-43 and P38 which are concomitant with neurite regeneration.