Fig. 1.

Gross pathology and brain analysis. Four-millimetre-thick brain slices were taken from brains after fixation, photographed and used for further analysis (a, occipital view). To calculate ventricular expansion, total volumes of hemispheres and ventricles were calculated from the areas of the ipsilateral hemisphere (dark (grey matter) and middle (white matter) red, without infarct) and ventricle (light red) as well as contralateral hemisphere (dark (grey matter) and middle (white matter) blue) and ventricle (light blue, all given in b) according to Eqs. 1 to 3 in “Materials and Methods”. For histological investigations of two consecutive slices from three defined regions (rostral and occipital border of infarction, and level of MCAO) infarcted areas (black area, with adherent leptomeninx) were discriminated from the bordering reactive zone (200 μm broad, dark grey), and the remote zone in the ipsilateral hemisphere (c). In the remote and reactive zone, grey and white matter areas where analysed separately. Where appropriate, comparison to corresponding areas in the contralateral hemisphere was also drawn. Scale bar in (a) indicates 1 cm. inf infarct, remote remote zone, contralat. contralateral hemisphere