dl-3n-butylphthalide prevents stroke via improvement of cerebral microvessels in RHRSP

The purpose of the study is to establish a model of cold-induced stroke in hypertensive rats, and to study the preventive effect of dl-3n-butylphthalide (NBP) on stroke. Stroke-prone renovascular hypertension(RHRSP) was created in Sprague-Dawley rats. The animals were assigned randomly to NBP, aspirin treated and vehicle control group, with administration of the medications for 7 days, and then subjected to cold treatment in an environmentally controlled chamber for 3 days to induce the occurrence of stroke. The incidence of stroke, the volume of the brain lesion, patency of the microvessels by FITC-dextran pet-fusion and the number of microvessels by immunohisochemical detection of vwF were investigated. Cold induced different types of stroke in RHRSP. The incidence of ischemic stroke and the volume of the infarct were decreased, and the perfused microvessels were increased with NBP pretreatment. Our data suggest that NBP prevents cold-induced ischemic stroke via improvement of cerebral microvessels. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.