AccScience Publishing / AN / Volume 1 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.36922/an.v1i2.1
REVIEW

Implications of age-related changes in the blood-brain barrier for ischemic stroke and new treatment strategies

Sarah Eide1 Zhong-Ping Feng1*
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1 Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, 3308 Medical Sciences Building, 1 King’s College Circle, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1A8
Advanced Neurology 2022, 1(2), 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/an.v1i2.1
Submitted: 13 December 2021 | Accepted: 13 May 2022 | Published: 12 August 2022
© 2022 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Ischemic strokes are prevalent across all age groups. Recent research has highlighted the importance of better understanding ischemia-induced damage of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) because it is related to both the severity of ischemic injury and neurological outcomes. The influence of advancing age on the structure and function of the BBB and the potential influence of these changes on ischemic stroke injury have received little consideration to date. Therefore, the present review outlines how ischemic injury influences the structure and function of the BBB at the anatomical, cellular, and molecular levels, and how these changes differ between adult and elderly populations with and without age-related comorbid diseases. This review further discusses how age-dependent changes and features of the BBB, and the corresponding alterations in response to ischemia, can affect the efficacy and delivery of current and future treatment options. Current research efforts are underway to develop prospective stroke treatment strategies that target the restoration of BBB functionality. This review also discusses the importance of considering the unique properties and characteristics of the BBB in elderly individuals for developing new stroke treatment strategies.

Keywords
Ischemic stroke
Blood-brain barrier
Inflammation
Drug delivery
Diabetes
Alzheimer’s disease
Funding
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interests.
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Advanced Neurology, Electronic ISSN: 2810-9619 Print ISSN: 3060-8589, Published by AccScience Publishing