Optical coherence tomography investigation of ischemic stroke inside a rodent model

Although already in use in several medical domains, only recently optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been applied in the study of ischemic events. In this paper, we will focus on characterizing ischemic stroke, in a rat model, by OCT. Investigations were carried on a set of 25 rats, on which ischemic stroke was inflicted by a transient occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (tMCAO). Animals were sacrificed 1, 3, 7 and 28 days after occlusion. We tested the OCT's power of detection and discrimination of stroke area compared to both normal, contralateral hemisphere and non-affected brain tissue, together with the aid of histochemical and pathological examination. Our results show a great potential of OCT to be used as a detection tool in acute and chronic phases of stroke.