There are two patterns of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) models used in rat middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) I/R models, which differ in the use of unilateral or bilateral carotid artery reperfusion. The primary difference between the two patterns of I/R models is the complexity of the surgery procedure. However, researchers in this field have no idea whether there are any differences in outcomes of these two methods. In this study, we investigated the effects of the two methods on neurological deficits, infarct volume, blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity and brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression. Through evaluating the current way of bilateral common carotid artery reperfusion, we tried to find whether it could be replaced by an easier way. We found that there were no statistical significant differences between the different methods in infarct volume, neurological deficits, BBB integrity, and the level of BDNF (P > 0.05). These data demonstrated that different methods did not affect the neurological deficits, infarct volume, BBB integrity, and the BDNF protein level, which provides reference when we use an experimental stroke. These results suggest that the two methods have similar capability for inducing cerebral I/R injury and can be interchanged.
Keywords: experimental stroke model; ischemia/reperfusion; middle cerebral artery occlusion; stroke.