Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

There are often long-lasting memory impairments following transient global ischemia, where the blood supply to the brain is temporarily interrupted. Characterizing these memory impairments can help provide information on possible neuroprotective treatments for stroke. Research using animal models has shown that following ischemia, rats display both impaired object recognition memory (the ability to discriminate the familiarity of previously encountered objects) and spatial memory. Research assessing ischemia induced memory impairments in rats typically focus on anterograde memory (the ability to form new memories). However, there are no animal model experiments assessing the effects of ischemia on retrograde memory (ability to recall that which was encountered before a trauma to the brain). Thus, the goal of the proposed experiment is to assess the retrograde memory impairments in rats following transient global ischemia. This research will yield valuable information on the cognitive impairments that occur after ischemia. The findings from this experiment may provide important implications for animal models used in assessing neuroprotective treatments for stroke. Subsequently, this may lead to an improvement in the preclinical assessment of stroke, which is essential to the clinical evaluation of neuroprotective treatments for stroke.