The effect of stress on stroke recovery in a photothrombotic stroke animal model

Background and aims Several studies have provided convincing evidence that psychosocial factors, chronic stress and emotional factors are all independent predictors of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular events as well However, psychosocial factors have received little attention in the medical setting The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of stress on photothrombotic ischermic cortical injury in an animal model Methods Sprague Dawley rats were assigned to the four groups and cortical photothrombosis was induced in the sensorimotor cortex The stress groups were subjected to restraint stress for five days We evaluate the behavioral function, infarct volume, apoptotic cell death and the activations of mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK Erk1/Erk2 and p38MAPK) for the evaluation of stress effects on stroke Results There was a significant increase in cortical infarct volume and apoptotic cell death at the stroke group subjected to restraint stress (p<0 05 and p<0 01 respectively) The functional recovery was worst in restraint stress group during five days (p<0 05) The activation of Erk1 and Erk2 were increased by restraint stress in sham operation group but decreased in stroke stress group than stroke control group (p<001) The activation of p38MAPK was increased by stroke but this effect was decreased by restraint stress (p<005 and p<0 01, respectively) Our data demonstrates that restraint stress increases infarction volume and decreases functional recovery in rat stroke models by modulation of the MAPK pathway (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved