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Updated: Apr 29, 2026

Combining Imaging and Electrophysiology to Visualize and Record Spreading Depolarizations in Mice
Published on: October 4, 2024
Chaos and commotion in the wake of cortical spreading depression and spreading depolarizations
Daniela Pietrobon1, Michael A Moskowitz2
1Department of Biomedical Sciences and CNR Institute of Neuroscience, University of Padova 35121 Padova, Italy.
Abstract:
Punctuated episodes of spreading depolarizations erupt in the brain, encumbering tissue structure and function, and raising fascinating unanswered questions concerning their initiation and propagation. Linked to migraine aura and headache, cortical spreading depression contributes to the morbidity in the world's migraine with aura population. Even more ominously, erupting spreading depolarizations accelerate tissue damage during brain injury. The once-held view that spreading depolarizations may not exist in the human brain has changed, largely because of the discovery of migraine genes that confer cortical spreading depression susceptibility, the application of sophisticated imaging tools and efforts to interrogate their impact in the acutely injured human brain.
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