Subarachnoid haemorrhage as a valid model for stroke

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The devastating effects of a stroke are caused most commonly by a blood clot which blocks a blood vessel that supplies the brain. Blood flow is essential for normal brain function and stopping the blood supply, even for a few minutes, can cause damage and death of brain cells and the patient. We know a great deal about what happens to the brain during a stroke, but it has been very difficult to develop new treatments that are effective for patients. This is partly because stroke patients are not easy to study. We believe that we can get important information about stroke and related brain diseases, and perhaps develop new treatments, by studying a related condition called subarachnoid haemorrhage.In subarachnoid haemorrhage a blood vessel in the brain bursts rather than clots (as in stroke). We know that subarachnoid haemorrhage probably damages brain cells in a similar way to stroke, and now want to determine if the brain bleeding condition can be used to study stroke and to develop new drugs. We will do this by studying established animal models of stroke and subarachnoid haemorrhage, and patients with stroke and subarachnoid haemorrhage. Our research will involve imaging the brain and studying molecules in the blood, which we know are related to whether the patients will do well or not so well. We wish to test whether similar changes in the levels of these molecules occur in the blood of the animal models and patients, and also if stroke patients show changes similar to subarachnoid haemorrhage patients. We will also monitor how much brain damage occurs in both the animals and patients to see whether it is related to any changes in the molecules in the blood. If we see similar changes between animals and patients then this shows that subarachnoid haemorrhage patients can be used to study stroke and to test new treatments.