Acute neurological injuries are devastating events that affect all individuals across the spectrum of human life. Understanding the mechanisms of cell death after these incidents will help to develop pharmacological agents and therapeutic interventions to reduce or prevent the damage. Many studies have been conducted and new exciting discoveries have been reported. However, only limited treatments are available today for the victims of acute neurological injuries. More investigations are needed to explore the underlying mechanisms of neuronal injury following the insult and to translate them into preclinical and clinical settings. Reliable animal models are the key for experimental neurobiology. To date, many animal models for acute neurological injuries have been developed. But large variations in experimental outcomes exist between laboratories even using the same animal model, making the comparison and replication impossible and jeopardizing advances in the field. This variation is largely due to the lack of a standard manual detailing the methodology in animal models. weiterlesen