Cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury in the gerbil.

Gerbils subjected to cerebral ischemia (unilateral carotid occlusion for 6 hr) were either asymptomatic or developed increasingly severe neurologic deficits which correlated with degrees of brain swelling (weights of ischemic hemisphere versus the contralateral control hemispheres) following 3 hr of reperfusion. Asymptomatic gerbils or gerbils suffering only mild deficits survived for 1 week following reperfusion while gerbils suffering moderate to severe deficits had a poor survival rate with only 22% remaining alive after 1 week.