Schedule of Events | Symposia

New Biomarkers Predict Post-stroke Behavioral Recovery

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Emily Long¹ (elong@bu.edu), Rockwell Tang¹, Gülce Küreli¹, Evren Erdener^1,2, Piergiulio Bressan¹, John Jiang¹, Shashwat Shah¹, John Giblin¹, Sreekanth Kura¹, David Boas¹; ¹Neurophotonics Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA, ²Institute of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry, Hacettepe University, Ankara 06230, Türkiye

Motor and cognitive impairments, common consequences of stroke, significantly affect post-stroke functioning and quality of life. Early and accurate prediction of behavioral recovery is crucial for guiding targeted interventions and optimizing rehabilitation, emphasizing the need for reliable prognostic biomarkers. This study longitudinally examined ischemic stroke progression in a mouse model and identified two biological signals with diagnostic value for predicting behavioral recovery and outcomes: vascular oscillations and capillary stalling. Vascular oscillations are low-frequency oscillatory dynamics in the hemodynamic signal, typically observed within the 0.1-0.3 Hz band in mice; Capillary stalling occurs when capillary blood flow is transiently interrupted due to physiological changes including leukocyte-endothelium adhesion. Measurements of vascular oscillations in cerebral blood flow and capillary stalling were gathered using laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) respectively, while behavioral outcome was evaluated with cylinder tests. Our results revealed that the elevation in stalling events at week 1 post-stroke is correlated with a poorer behavioral recovery at week 2, whereas a higher oscillation power at week 1 predicts a better behavioral outcome at week 2. Mechanistic analysis showed that vascular oscillations enhanced recovery by reducing capillary stalling, indicating an interdependent relationship between these biomarkers. These findings underscore the potential of vascular oscillations and capillary stalling as prognostic biomarkers for stroke recovery and further experiments can be performed to determine the physiological drives for higher vascular oscillation powers and potentially discover new prognostic biomarkers to monitor stroke progression.

Topic Area: METHODS: Neuroimaging