Changes in Cortical Connectivity and Gene Expression of the Rostral Forelimb Area After Ischemic Infarct in Motor Cortex in the Rat

Abstract

Stroke is a large and growing problem in the United States. There are 795,000 incidences each year, and most are new incidences. Survivors are left with lasting functional deficits, and therefore stroke is one of the leading causes of adult disability in humans. Some function is regained that was lost to stroke, and this recovery is correlated to physiological reorganization. That is to say, after stroke the brain functions differently. The physiological reorganization may be based on anatomical reorganization. If this is true, the brain acts differently, because it is wired differently after stroke. The anatomical reorganization may be based on expression differences; thus, leading to the conclusion that the brain is wired differently because genes were expressed in different ways after the stroke. The series of studies within this dissertation lead the reader down this train of thought and show evidence for it by using adult rats in a model of ischemic injury to the cortex, and compare the connectivity and gene expression patterns of lesioned brains to non-lesioned brains.