Coordinator: Michael Moskowitz

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA


Faculty:

Costantino Iadecola, Cornell University, New York, USA

Engl H Lo, Harvard University, Boston, USA

Martin Dichgans, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany

Margaret E Ross, Cornell University, USA

Steven A Greenberg, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA

Randy Nudo, University of Kansas, Kansas City, USA



This course will focus on the science of stroke and provide an intensive review of basic and translational mechanisms. Participants will have an opportunity to learn the most current information about risk factors and genetics (monogenic and polygenic causes), prevention strategies and their scientific underpinnings, acute stroke pathophysiology, approaches to drug discovery in the acute and delayed time periods and mechanisms underlying brain plasticity and restoration of function. Eight distinguished faculty members from Europe and USA will participate.

Within each topic, we will focus on state of the art genetic tools useful to study stroke. We will discuss the complex role of inflammation and introduce the emerging importance of peripheral immune mechanisms to complement and complicate inflammatory events ongoing within brain. We will also address recently proposed therapeutic targets with a discussion of the merits of vascular and tissue strategies (e.g., inhaled nitric oxide, cortical spreading depression), and the synergistic opportunities they present . Of course, animal models have continued to play a key role in preclinical investigation and we plan a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses plus new initiatives concerning how they may best be used to improve upon the drug discovery process. A comprehensive review of contemporary stroke research would not be complete without a focus on vascular mechanisms underlying white matter injury as well as hemorrhage, plus it will include a discussion of the evidence implicating the vasculature and neurovascular unit in the pathophysiology of vascular dementia and its potential treatments.