Journal of Neurochemistry

Pre-clinical Systematic Reviews

While NARRATIVE scientific reviews of current topics are invaluable resources, SYSTEMATIC reviews offer the most objective analysis and are commonplace in the clinical literature. By comparison, such reviews of pre-clinical animal data appear infrequently and yet could inform the planning and improve the likelihood of success of future clinical trials, and are clearly an integral part of the drug development process.

The subjects within this special issue of JNC are intentionally wide-ranging. One shows how the available animal data support re-purposing of histone deacetylase inhibitors, drugs currently in use as cancer chemotherapeutics, for acute brain injury (stroke and head trauma). Another indicates that specific insulin-sensitizing drugs (thiazolidinediones) reduce structural and functional deficits following cerebral ischemia. A third review assesses how useful one animal model (EAE) of multiple sclerosis has been in providing a testing ground for novel clinical therapeutics, and the last reveals how well animal models mimic the progressive vascular cognitive impairment that is observed in humans. All of these reviews highlight variation in the quality of published pre-clinical studies and examine whether critical pieces of data are still required in order to progress to the planning stage of clinical trials.

Read Introduction

October 2012

Stroke outcome in the ketogenic state – a systematic review of the animal data
Claire L. Gibson, Anne N. Murphy and Sean P. Murphy

August 2012

Citicoline in pre-clinical animal models of stroke: a meta-analysis shows the optimal neuroprotective profile and the missing steps for jumping into a stroke clinical trial
Alejandro Bustamante, Dolors Giralt, Lidia Garcia-Bonilla, Mireia Campos, Anna Rosell and Joan Montaner

July 2012

Evidence for the efficacy of statins in animal stroke models: a meta-analysis
Lidia García-Bonilla, Mireia Campos, Dolors Giralt, David Salat, Pilar Chacón, Mar Hernández-Guillamon, Anna Rosell, Joan Montaner

November 2010

Benefits of histone deacetylase inhibitors for acute brain injury: a systematic review of animal studies
Claire L. Gibson, Sean P. Murphy

Experimental models of vascular dementia and vascular cognitive impairment: a systematic review
Nadim S. Jiwa, Peter Garrard, Atticus H. Hainsworth

Are current disease-modifying therapeutics in multiple sclerosis justified on the basis of studies in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis?
Nasr Farooqi, Bruno Gran, Cris S. Constantinescu

Administration of thiazolidinediones for neuroprotection in ischemic stroke: a pre-clinical systematic review
Amanda T. White, Anne N. Murphy