Bubbleheads

Strokes can wreak devastation on your brain. Spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) is the most deadly type of stroke. Treatments are limited, with little success translating new therapies discovered in mammals to humans. Researchers now use zebrafish larvae to screen for drugs to protect the brain after ICH. Transparent zebrafish larvae make it easy to use fluorescence microscopy to detect changes such as a brain bleed (shown here in yellow) or cell death. Using bubblehead larvae – genetically manipulated larvae that model ICH – 2000 drugs were screened. Fluorescent staining for a cell death marker identified 150 drugs that reduced brain cell death after ICH; six were cardiovascular medications, including two ACE inhibitors (ACE-Is) commonly given to ICH patients. Analysing past clinical trial data revealed ICH patients who received ACE-Is within 7 days of their stroke had improved outcomes after 90 days. The bubblehead model can, therefore, reliably identify drugs for stroke treatment.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Siobhan Crilly and colleagues
• Division of Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Research published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, March 2022