Discussion and Conclusions

This book is devoted to a unique experimental animal, the Mongolian gerbil that was adopted in the early 1960s as an experimental animal in studying brain ischemia and epileptic seizures. The uniqueness of this book is that it emphasizes the relationship between brain mitochondrial function, vasculature, and brain pathology. The anatomy of the blood vessels supplying the blood to the brain was compared to the responses of the brain mitochondria to ischemia induced by the ligation of one or two carotid arteries. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the data accumulated were performed and discussed. The advantages of the gerbil as an animal model were discussed in various parts of this book. Also, the sensitivity of the gerbil to experimental manipulation was discussed.