Fig. 6

Acute and chronic lesion sizes. a, b The experiments depicted in Figs. 4 and 5 as well as here in Fig. 6a were conducted in the same animals. Of 10 VEC^+/+ and 16 VEC^+/- mice entered into the experiment, 2 VEC^+/+ and 4 VEC^+/- mice died shortly after MCAo. a Acute neuronal damage was assessed at 72 h after 30 min MCAo/reperfusion using 7 T MRI. One further VEC^+/+ mouse had to be excluded because, due to technical problems, MRI images in this animal were not of sufficient quality to allow a quantitative analysis. Therefore, the statistical evaluation is based on 7 VEC^+/+ and 12 VEC^+/- mice. T-test, *p < 0.05 versus wildtype. Representative MR-images (T2) are given in (b). c, d Chronic stroke outcome was assessed using NeuN immunohistochemistry. Direct cerebral lesion volumes (c) were determined on five coronal brain sections (approximately interaural 6.6 mm, 5.3 mm, 3.9 mm, 1.9 mm and -0.1 mm) by computer-assisted volumetry. Here, of 10 VEC^+/+ and 10 VEC^+/- mice entered into the experiment, 4 VEC+/+ and 3 VEC+/- survived to the time of histological analysis at four weeks after MCAo/reperfusion. T-test, *p < 0.05 versus wildtype. Representative images of NeuN immunohistochemistry are presented in (d). Scale bar in (d) 500 μm