A non-human primate model of aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH).

Aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is relatively rare form of hemorrhagic stroke, which produces significant social and medical challenges. As it affects people in their high productivity age and leaves 50 % of them dead and almost 70 % of survivors disabled, many of them severely, the reasons of such a dismal outcome have been intensively researched all over the world. Nevertheless, despite more than a half a century of clinical and scientific effort and dramatic improvement of surgical repair of aneurysms, the causes of poor outcome remain enigmatic. Introduction of numerous in vitro and in vivo models to study the unleashed by SAH mechanisms that injured the brain significantly advanced our understanding of biology of cerebral vessels, brain responses to intracranial pressure changes, and the presence of blood clot in subarachnoid space. One of the most important animal models that significantly contributed to those advances has been a non-human primate model introduced at the Bryce Weir laboratory in the University of Alberta, Canada, in 1984. Since then, this model, with some modifications, has been successfully used in several animal laboratories in the USA, Canada, and Japan. We present the model characteristics and describe in details medical, surgical, imagining techniques that we have used at the Surgical Neurology Branch of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke from 1989.

Relevance of animal models of subarachnoid hemorrhage for examining neurobehavioral changes.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: For many years survival and neurological functionality of patients were the main outcome measures after treatment of intracranial aneurysms. But, the variable outcomes of patients operated on in a delayed fashion or before the aneurysm rupture indicate that more precise measures are needed for assessment of not only the neurological but also the neuropsychological outcome. However, development and testing of such new tools requires better understanding of pathomechanisms of neurobehavioral changes evoked by aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH), which can be achieved using animal models. METHODS: We reviewed and selected (1) animal models developed to investigate delayed cerebral vasospasm that could be useful for examining effects of brain injury evoked by aSAH and (2) a battery of neurobehavioral animal testing that can be used for assessment of patients after aSAH. RESULTS: For every species used as an aSAH model, a battery of neurobehavioral test exists. CONCLUSION: Albeit some limitations must be recognized, research using animal models of SAH should continue to play a critical role in assessment of cognitive and behavioral functions after aSAH.