Zena Vexler, PhD
In humans and in rodents the stage of brain development at the time of stroke plays a key role in the pattern of brain damage. We are interested to understand the role of the immune system in neurovascular changes and injury in perinatal arterial stroke and childhood arterial stroke.
We were the first to establish and characterize the in vivo model of perinatal focal stroke in rats, and ours is the only laboratory that can produce focal arterial stroke in neonatal mice. With these age appropriate models, we made several discoveries of the mechanisms within immune-neurovascular axis that govern injury after perinatal stroke. Recently we established a model of childhood stroke and showed distinct patterns of blood-brain barrier permeability than after perinatal stroke. To critically approach the complexity of immune-vascular interactions, we use a broad arsenal of sophisticated experimental in vivo imaging tools, pharmacological tools and transgenic and reporter mouse lines to tease out the contribution of individual receptors and signaling molecules in microglial-neurovascular interaction in relation to stroke progression and outcomes.