[Evaluation of a long-term sensomotor deficit after neonatal rat brain ischemia/hypoxia].

The application of magnetic resonance imaging method showed that ischemia/hypoxia of the brain of neonatal rats made by the protocol suggested by Levine-Rice induces one-sided lesions in the areas of cerebral cortex, striatum and hippocampus. Unilateral ischemic injury leads to a long-term sensorimotor and behavioral distortions within 90-115 days after the operation which has been tested in animals by the battery of tests including Cylinder, Beam-walking, Staircase and Limb-placing test. Chosen battery of tests in combination with magnetic resonance imaging allows to reliably estimate the long-term sensorimotor recovery in adult animals suffered an injury in neonatal age.

[Neuroprotection in epilepsy].

Brain damage and neuronal loss caused by traumatic brain injury, ischemic stroke, and symptomatic status epilepticus can lead to severe long-term consequences, such as impairment in learning and memory and cognitive functions, and development of chronic epilepsy. This can be the result of morphologic and functional changes underlying temporal lobe epilepsy. Epilepsy patients have increased risk of status epilepticus. It is a life-threatening condition when seizures last for more than 30 min and trigger processes leading to neuronal apoptosis and necrosis in various parts of brain. Administration of neuroprotective drugs preventing these pathologic processes could improve the prognosis for such patients. However despite of active research of neuroprotective drugs, the effective ways to prevent brain damage resulting from prolonged seizures are yet to be found. Studies of neuroprotective properties of classic and novel anticonvulsant drugs showed that most of them do not have the sufficient neuroprotective effect and are not able to prevent epileptogenesis. Thus the studies of other potential neuroprotective drugs seem to be promising.