Increase in proliferation and gliogenesis but decrease of early neurogenesis in the rat forebrain shortly after transient global ischemia.

Regarding regenerative strategies early post-ischemic therapeutic interventions might have a great impact on further pathophysiological cascades. To understand the early post-ischemic events we analyzed proliferation and neurogenesis as early as on day 3 after transient global ischemia in rats. Evaluations were performed not only in the dorsal hippocampus, where post-ischemic cell death develops selectively in the cornu ammonis, subfield 1 area, but also in distant areas like the ventricle wall and the striatum. Ischemia was induced by a transient two-vessel occlusion combined with hypotension. Animals received daily i.p. injections of 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine until decapitation 1 or 3 days after ischemia. Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine and co-labeling with cell-specific markers. Three days after ischemia, proliferation significantly increased throughout the forebrain. Early neurogenesis, detected by doublecortin labeling, on the other hand, was restricted to the neurogenic zones of the dentate gyrus and the lateral ventricle. Global ischemia reduced the overall number of doublecortin-positive cells in the dentate gyrus, particularly in the upper blade of the dentate gyrus. However, the number of newly generated doublecortin- and 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine double-labeled cells was unchanged. The vast majority of newly generated cells were microglia/macrophages, which invaded morphologically damaged as well as undamaged regions. Astroglial cells were activated all over the forebrain by the ischemic insult. They were co-localized almost completely with nestin in many areas, yet, sparsely proliferated after the insult. Interestingly, in locally defined zones we found nestin- and glial fibrillary acidic protein-signals clearly separated. In sham-operated animals, nestin could be detected in both neurogenic zones only without co-labeling with glial markers. In conclusion, during the first days after global ischemia, cell death of cornu ammonis, subfield 1-neurons was accompanied by a massive overall proliferation and activation of microglia/macrophages, a reduction of pre-ischemia existing doublecortin-positive precursors in the dentate gyrus and a re-expression of nestin in glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive astrocytes.

Tetanus-induced re-activation of evoked spiking in the post-ischemic dentate gyrus.

This study aimed at investigating and influencing the basic electrophysiological functions and neuronal plasticity in the dentate gyrus in freely moving rats at several time-points after global ischemia. Although neuronal death was induced selectively in the cornu ammonis, subfield 1 (CA1)-region of the hippocampus, we found an additional loss of the population spike in the dentate gyrus after stimulation of the perforant path. Input/output-measurements revealed that as early as 1 day post-ischemia population spike generation in the granular cell layer is greatly decreased when compared with pre-ischemic values and to sham-operated animals, despite an apparently intact morphology of granular cells as evidenced by Nissl-staining. In contrast, the synaptic transmission (excitatory postsynaptic field potential) shows no significant difference when comparing values before and after ischemia and ischemic and sham-operated animals. Despite reduced output function, indicated by very small population spike amplitudes, long lasting potentiation can be induced 10 days after ischemia. Surprisingly, even "silent" populations of neurons, which appear selectively post-ischemia and do not show any evoked population spike, can be re-activated by tetanisation which is followed by a normal appearing long-term potentiation. However, this functional recovery seems to be partial and transient under current conditions: population spike-values do not reach pre-ischemic values and return to the low pre-tetanic baseline values the next day. Electrophysiological measurements ex vivo after ischemia indicate that the neuronal dysfunction in the dentate gyrus is not due to locally destroyed structures but that the activity of granular cells is merely suppressed only under in vivo conditions. In summary, global ischemia leaves a neighboring morphologically intact input area, functionally impaired. However, neuronal function can be partially regenerated by electrophysiological tetanic stimulation.