Brief analysis of the frequency of use and spectrum of animal models in stroke research

The development of new drugs and curative treatments without animal models is currently not possible. Due to the unique complexity of stroke, the number of models studying this is unusually extensive. The aim of the overview is to describe and simply analyse the spectrum of used experimental models and commonly used animal species in stroke research.

Methods:
The publications were searched in November 2017 in databases: PubMed, Science Direct, Wiley Online Library and Springer Link by using key word combinations. There was the registered type of model, species of animal, its gender and age of the animal for each stroke model, and there was the registered frequency of occurrence in monitored publication databases. Non-relevant publications and duplications were excluded. Results: There were 3,093 relevant links from 26,198 articles, which corresponded to the specifi cation of the methodology. Conclusion: The
article maps the frequency of use of animal models and used animal species in the field of stroke research.