Neurological Disorders: Resistance to Neurodegeneration
This is a general model of brain trauma, including cerebral ischemia and head injury. It addresses the sequelae to any insult to neurons. These include the reaction of the neurons themselves, but also the supporting glia, microglia (the brain's immune system), and peripheral inflammatory reactions that may impinge on the brain. These reactions are perhaps most relevant to head injury trauma. The brain irradiation challenge assay represents a significant improvement over other first-pass assays for looking at resistance or susceptibility to neuronal degeneration. This is both because it is an in vivo assay in adults, with physiological relevance in contrast to the various experimental insults that can be performed in vitro, and also because it can evaluate the overall system response to insult, including the impact of glial cells, vasculature, immune response, and the response of neuronal cells per se.