Assessment of dose-effect and therapeutic time window in preclinical studies of rhEGF and GHRP-6 coadministration for stroke therapy.

Background: Stroke continues to be a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, and novel therapeutic options for ischaemic stroke are urgently needed. In this context, drug combination therapies seem to be a viable approach, which has not been fully explored in preclinical studies.

Objectives: In this work, we assessed the dose-response relationship and therapeutic time window, in global brain ischaemia, of a combined therapeutic approach of recombinant human epidermal growth factor (EGF) and growth hormone-releasing peptide-6 (GHRP-6).

Global brain ischemia in Mongolian gerbils: assessing the level of anastomosis in the cerebral circle of Willis.

The Mongolian gerbil has been widely used as a global brain ischemia model because of its incomplete cerebral circle of Willis. However, the inter-individual anatomic variability of this vascular structure interferes with the reliability of the model. The aim of this work was to introduce modifications to the protocol of global brain ischemia experiments in Mongolian gerbils in an attempt to increase the reliability and usefulness of this model.