Assessment techniques in preclinical and clinical stroke studies

Stroke is the leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide. Thus, necessitating its accurate and timely diagnosis, along with differentiation of the stroke subtype. Assessment techniques in both preclinical and clinical setup encompasses deciphering pathology and evaluating treatment efficacy. Such assessments are pivotal for constructing favorable patient outcome in stroke. In the preclinical aspect, methods involving in vivo imaging and behavioral tests, along with ex vivo staining procedures, biochemical, molecular and mitochondrial assays, are implemented in different animal stroke models. Whereas in the clinical aspect, advanced neuroimaging techniques such as, MRI, CT, PET, and SPECT, also recently assisted with AI-based analysis are the basis for stroke assessment. Certain blood-based biomarkers are also being evaluated in pre-clinical and clinical domains to serve as reference for assessment of stroke subtype and prognosis prediction. In this review, we attempt outline key assessment techniques across both domains, while highlighting their significance in stroke.