Brain ischemia comprises blood-brain barrier, glial, and neuronal cells. The blood-brain barrier controls permeability of different substances and the composition of the neuronal cells 'milieu', which is required for their physiological functioning. Recent evidence indicates that brain ischemia itself and ischemic blood-brain barrier dysfunction is associated with the accumulation of neurotoxic molecules within brain tissue, e.g., different parts of amyloid-β protein precursor and changed pathologically tau protein. All these changes due to ischemia can initiate and progress neurodegeneration of the Alzheimer's disease-type. This review presents brain ischemia and ischemic blood-brain barrier as a trigger for tau protein alterations. Thus, we hypothesize that the changes in pattern of phosphorylation of tau protein are critical to microtubule function especially in neurons, and contribute to the neurodegeneration following brain ischemia-reperfusion episodes with Alzheimer's disease phenotype.
Keywords: Blood-brain barrier; brain ischemia; dementia; experimental; gene expression; human; neurodegeneration; neuronal death; stroke; tau protein.