Improvement Of The Cognitive Impairment Induced By Different Degree Carotid Artery Stenosis In Rats

Background and objective:Cerebral vascular disease (CVD) is well known as the common and frequently encountered disease, characterized of high disability rate and high fatality rate, resulting in many different sequels including paralysis, sensory disability, aphasia, vascular dementia (VD) etc. The risk factors of CVD are so many that the primary prevention is very difficult, but very important. Recent studies have shown that the cognitive impairment can be resulted from carotid artery stenosis,which can result in cognitive impairment by thrombsis, hypopufusion and embolism mechanism. At the same time, the large-scale clinic studies at home or abroad have indicated that patients with asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis manifest with deficits in physical performance as compared with a control group, such as the disorders of language, analysis and reasoning, visual-spacial ability. These deficits may indicate that patients are of preclinical disability. Consequently carotid artery stenosis is regarded as an independent risk factor and premonition of cognigtive impairment. The incidence of vascular dementia will be remarkably reduced by the primary prevention of carotid artery stenosis. Medication is the main therapy for VD, but it only temperarily relieves the symptoms, cannot stop VD progressing. With the development of interventional radiology, numorous patients have been accepted therapy of carotid endarterectomy(CEA) or carotid atery stenting(CAS) for their reliability and safty. However, about whether CEA or CAS can improve the cognitive impairment or not, lots of studies are not in agreement. In our experiment, we observed the effect of CEA or CAS on the cognitive impairment induced by carotid artery stenosis in rats by removal of carotid artery stenosis and comparing with effect of it with medicine therapy in different stenosis groups. Then the changes of cognitive impairment in rats receiving different treatment were observed and compared with the intention to explore a new therapy for VD.