Research

Area 4

Cerebral Ischemia: Clinical and Experimental Studies

Team manager
Anna M. Planas
(IIBB-CSIC)

Strategic objectives

Study of cerebrovascular disease from the clinical and basic research perspective, with special emphasis on inflammation and the immune response and on the application of neuroimaging techniques. The end objective is to develop therapeutic strategies for treating stroke.

Main lines of research

1. Immunologic mechanisms implicated in the course of ischemic stroke and in the appearance of infectious complications. Study of inflammatory responses and innate immunity to stroke. Genetic aspects of the immune response.

2. Identification of new antioxidant treatments in stroke. Preclinical studies of the protective effects of these treatments and of the mechanisms involved. Design and execution of a phase IIb study of the administration of uric acid in stroke treated with rtPA.

3. Use of intra-arterial rescue treatments with rt-PA in patients previously treated with intravenous rt-PA and selected using multimodal imaging techniques.

4. Neuroimaging in cerebral ischemia: Application of imaging techniques using magnetic resonance (MR) for noninvasive in vivo monitoring in patients and, in experimental animals, anatomic and functional parameters of the brain lesion, including the immune response.

5. Signals implicated in neuronal death and survival in ischemia: Role of endoplasmic reticulum stress and molecular regulation of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-1a).

6. Neuron repair and neurogenesis in cerebral ischemia: Effect of inflammation on neurogenesis.