Figure 1

Study overview (A) with defined time points for assessing heart rate and mean arterial blood pressure, as well as body weight, functional impairment and blood–brain barrier impairment. Native representative examples (B, C) of blood–brain barrier impairment located in the rat brain affected by thromboembolic stroke and clearly indicated by leakage of FITC-albumin from the intra- to the extravasal space at 40x magnification. Further affected vessels (D, E) with exemplarily inserted regions of interest for quantification of BBB impairment. Long-term stabilization of the green fluorescent signal of FITC-albumin was ensured by an enhancing technique using carbocyanine 2-anti-FITC IgG. Figures B-D were slightly modified by enhancing the green canal on the tone curve using Corel Photo-Paint (Version 12.0, Corel Corp., Ottawa, Canada), applying the same setup for all 4 Figures. Scale bars in B-E: 30 μm.