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Updated: Jan 31, 2026
A Murine Model of Subarachnoid Hemorrhage
Published on: November 21, 2013
Early focal brain injury after subarachnoid hemorrhage correlates with spreading depolarizations
Nina Eriksen1, Egill Rostrup1, Martin Fabricius1
1From the Research Laboratory for Stereology and Neuroscience, Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital (N.E., B.P.), University of Copenhagen; Departments of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine (E.R.) and Clinical Neurophysiology (M.F., M.L.), Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Neuroradiology (M.S., G.B.), Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Germany; Center for Stroke Research Berlin (S.M., M.K.L.W., V.K., C.R., P.V., J.W., J.P.D.) and Departments of Experimental Neurology (S.M., C.R., J.P.D.), Neurology (S.M., J.P.D.), and Neurosurgery (P.V., J.W.), Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health; Department of Neurosurgery (E.S., O.W.S.), University Hospital Heidelberg, Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg; Neurosurgery Center Ludwigsburg-Heilbronn (O.W.S.), RKH Klinikum Ludwigsburg, Germany; UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute (J.A.H.) and Department of Neurosurgery (J.A.H.), University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine, OH; Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Applied Biostatistics (P.M.), University of Tübingen, Germany; Department of Neuroscience and Center for Healthy Aging, Panum Institute (M.L.), and Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences (B.P.), University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin (J.P.D.), Berlin; and Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin (J.P.D.), Germany.
Objective:
To investigate whether spreading depolarization (SD)-related variables at 2 different time windows (days 1-4 and 5-8) after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) correlate with the stereologically determined volume of early focal brain injury on the preinterventional CT scan.
Methods:
In this observational multicenter study of 54 patients, volumes of unaffected brain tissue, ventricles, cerebellum, aSAH, intracerebral hemorrhage, and focal parenchymal hypodensity were stereologically estimated. Patients were electrocorticographically monitored using subdural electrodes for 81.8 hours (median) (interquartile range: 70.6-90.5) during days 1-4 (n = 54) and for 75.9 (59.5-88.7) hours during days 5-8 (n = 51). Peak total SD-induced depression duration of a recording day (PTDDD) and peak numbers of (1) SDs, (2) isoelectric SDs, and (3) spreading depressions of a recording day were determined following the recommendations of the Co-Operative Studies on Brain Injury Depolarizations.
Results:
Thirty-three of 37 patients with early focal brain injury (intracerebral hemorrhage and/or hypodensity) in contrast to 7 of 17 without displayed SDs during days 1-4 (sensitivity: 89% [95% confidence interval, CI: 75%-97%], specificity: 59% [CI: 33%-82%], positive predictive value: 83% [CI: 67%-93%], negative predictive value: 71% [CI: 42%-92%], Fisher exact test, p < 0.001). All 4 SD-related variables during days 1-4 significantly correlated with the volume of early focal brain injury (Spearman rank order correlations). A multiple ordinal regression analysis identified the PTDDD as the most important predictor.
Conclusions:
Our findings suggest that early focal brain injury after aSAH is associated with early SDs and further support the notion that SDs are a biomarker of focal brain lesions.
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