Table 1.

Commonly used ischemic stroke study paradigms

Model		Description	Research technology	Merits	Demerits
In vitro	Cell culture, OGD model	Cell cultrue under oxygen and glucose deprivation environment	Biochemical and molecular biological techniques	Simplification of the pathophysiological process	Far from reality, the absence of intact brain structure
Ex vivo	Acute brain slices, OGD model	Alive acute slices under oxygen and glucose deprivation environment	Electrophysiological, microscopy	Close to the in vivo environment Observe the deep brain tissue Facilitate for drug delivery	Influence cellular state when performing brain tissue sectioning
In vivo	MCAO	Introducing a filament into the origin of the middle cerebral artery through the internal carotid artery to block the blood flow	Postmortem research: biochemical and molecular biological techniques, the omics, optical microscopy, and micro-optical sectioning tomography	Reflect on the process in an intact postmortem animal	Reflect states at specific time points, inability to remodel dynamic processes
	Photothrombotic stroke	Systemically applying a photosensitive dye (e.g., Rose Bengal) and illuminate it with light of a specific wavelength to block the blood flow	Living observation technologies: neuroimaging, laser Doppler flowmetry, in vivo electrophysiological and optogenetics	Dynamic recording of morphological and functional changes of cells and vessels in living animals.	The spatiotemporal resolution is limited. Glial cells and vascular elements are electrically silent.
	Endothelin-1 model	Locally applying the endothelin-1 on the brain to reduce the blood flow using its vasoconstrictive properties

MCAO: Middle cerebral artery occlusion; OGD: oxygen-glucose deprivation.