Determining the source of variability within experimental stroke models

在英国，脑中风是导致死亡的第三大原因，是导致成人严重残疾的主要原因，每年花费NHS约30亿英镑。产生新颖和合理的治疗方法是必不可少的。因此，每年都有成千上万的动物被用于模拟中风和研究潜在的治疗方法。小鼠通常用于中风模型的实验研究，尤其是因为它们对基因操作研究很有用。然而，使用实验性脑卒中模型的研究往往显示出产生的数据有很大的差异。这通常会导致研究人员在每次研究中使用更多的动物，以试图发现显著的差异。我们认为，这种差异的很大一部分可能是由于大脑血管解剖结构的差异。这种可变性已经在解剖学研究中得到了很好的证明，我们在此建议引入一种非侵入性筛选过程，即那些具有最高可变性程度的动物在进行实验性中风之前可以被排除在研究之外。因此，这将减少使用实验性中风模型获得的数据的可变性，从而减少接受此类手术的动物数量。此外，我们打算确定在诱导实验性中风的既定方案中进行变化也可以减少数据的可变性，从而减少在此类实验中使用的动物数量。

In the UK, cerebral stroke is the 3rd cause of death, the leading cause of severe adult disability in adults and costs the NHS an estimated £3 billion per year. The generation of novel and rational therapeutics is essential. Thus, every year thousands of animals are used experimentally to model stroke and investigate potential therapies. Mice are commonly used in experimental studies aimed at modelling stroke not least because they are useful for genetic manipulation studies. However, studies using eperimental stroke models tend to show a large variabiity in the data produced. This usually results in researchers using increased number of animals per study in order to try and detect a significant difference. We propose that a large portion of this variability may be due to differences in the anatomy of blood vessels in the brain. Such variability has been well documented in anatomical studies and we propose here the introduction of a non-invasive screening process whereby those animal with the highest degree of variability can be excluded from studies prior to them undergoing experimental stroke. Thus, this should reduce the variability in data obtained from using experimetnal stroke models and therefore reduce the number of animals undergoing such procedures. In addition, we intend to deternine with a variation in the established protocol for inducing experimental stroke can also result in a reduction in the variability of data and therefore reduce the number of animals used in such experiments.