Dissemination of refinements in mouse experimental stroke models to the scientific community.

在英国，中风是第三大死亡原因，是成人严重残疾的主要原因，据估计，NHS每年要花费30亿英镑。新的和合理的治疗方法的产生是必不可少的。因此，每年都有数以千计的动物被实验性地用于建立中风模型和研究潜在的治疗方法。老鼠通常被用于旨在模拟中风的实验研究中，尤其是因为它们对基因操作研究很有用。然而，使用实验性中风模型的研究往往表明，所产生的数据存在很大的变异性。这通常会导致研究人员在每项研究中使用更多的动物，以试图发现显著的差异。我们提出，这种可变性的很大一部分可能是由于大脑血管解剖的差异，而我们之前开发的另一种方法减少了所看到的可变性。我们在这里的目的是在科学界传播这种精致的方法，以便其他进行中风实验研究的实验室将产生变异性较小的数据，从而减少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 experimental stroke models tend to show a large variability in the data produced. This usually results in researchers using an increased number of animals per study in order to try and detect a significant difference. We proposed that a large portion of this variability may be due to differences in the anatomy of blood vessels in the brain and an alternative approach, which we have previously developed, reduces the variability seen. Our aim here is to disseminate this refined approach within the scientific community so that other labs performing experimental stroke studies will produce data with reduced variability and therefore reduce the number of animals used in such experiments.