Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Subarachnoid hemorrhage comprises about 7% of all strokes. The spontaneous form is usually due to an aneurysmal rupture. Though the incidence is low, it affects young individuals and is associated with particularly poor outcome. Much of this mortality and morbidity stems from neurological insults immediately after aneurysmal rupture, and a secondary stroke event that occurs days after, called delayed cerebral ischemia. Micorvascular disturbances appear to play an important role in causing these two phenomena. Recently, our laboratory has identified key changes to the microvasculature after subarachnoid hemorrhage in mice, more specifically, the size of small intraparenchymal vessels was found to be substantially changed just minutes after SAH, which persisted days after the hemorrhage. This would suggest that at least some of the ischemia would be due to local reductions in perfusion, resulting from microvessel constrictions. Our current goal is to determine if these changes occur in vivo, their time course and the functional consequences. This study will be the first comprehensive in vivo study of cerebral microvessels after subarachnoid hemorrhage, and we hope to potentially elucidate a new therapeutic avenue with which to treat subarachnoid hemorrhage patients.