Cerebral ischemia: some secondary alterations and animal models

stroke is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized countries. it imposes an enormous economic burden on the families of patients and on society. the purpose of this review is to give an overview about diverse animal models used to study some brain injury by cerebral ischemia with the aim to stress that this information has contributed to understand the mechanism of the neuronal lesion. some of these injury processes are not yet completely understood and are now the subject of a more detailed investigation in order to obtain more specific knowledge to prevent and to predict the value and effect of therapeutic approaches inhuman subjects.