Stroke

St. Michael’s neuroscientists are leaders in the field of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke.

Scientists are investigating the causes of delayed neurological deterioration after subarachnoid hemorrhage through the use of animal models, as well as studies testing learning and memory and changes in brain electrophysiology, gene expression and function. Clinical trials and knowledge translation in ischemic stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage are also major research areas where researchers at St. Michael’s are world-wide coordinators. St. Michael’s neuroscientists are investigating the influence of the type of hospitalization, sociodemographic and health service factors on patient outcomes, among many other projects.


Areas of research St. Michael’s neurovascular scientists are investigating include:

  • Aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage and cerebral vasospasm
  • Causes of delayed neurological deterioration after subarachnoid hemorrhage
  • Large artery vasospasm after aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage
  • Pathophysiology of intracerebral and subdural hemorrhage
  • Brain vascular malformations and cerebral aneurysms
  • Neurovascular clinical trials
  • Identifying neurocognitive and functional consequences of brain aneurysms
  • Developing imaging based surrogate markers of outcome in stroke
  • Stroke outcome and quality of care
  • Stroke therapy (translating new emerging therapies into clinical practice
  • Epidemiology of cerebrovascular disease

Featured Videos

Stroke Outcomes Research Centre

What is a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage?

Research on Subarachnoid Hemorrhage


Stroke Programs

Stroke Outcomes Research Centre

The primary focus the Stroke Outcomes Research Centre, led by Dr.Gustavo Saposnik, includes 3 levels of intervention:

  1. acute stroke care
  2. stroke prevention
  3. stroke rehabilitation

Dr. Saposnik is the principal investigator of several stroke outcome research projects and grants, and published over 130 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Saposnik has established a successful research program on Stroke Outcomes Research www.sorcan.ca and is currently working with the American Heart Association in developing guidelines for stroke care. Featured projects include:

iHOME

The goal of iHOME is to examine the feasibility of an interactive software application, using a tablet PC (the iPad), to enhance attention and fine motor function of the upper extremity and remediate visual neglect in stroke patients, relative to the standard of care.

iSCORE

iSCORE is a predictive model of stroke mortality may be useful for clinicians to improve communication with and care of hospitalized patients. Our aim was to identify predictors of mortality and to develop and validate a risk score model using information available at hospital presentation.

JURaSSiC

The Clinician Judgment vs. Risk Score to predict Stroke outComes (JURaSSiC) study randomized 111 Clinicians with expertise in acute stroke care to predict clinical outcomes of 5 assigned case-based ischemic stroke scenarios. Participants were enrolled in the study if they were practicing clinicians who provided stroke care in Ontario and were directly involved in medical decision making during the initial presentation or hospitalization. To reflect actual clinical practice, ischemic stroke cases for scenario development were selected to be representative of the 10 most common clinical presentations (n=1,415). This was possible by creating a patient profile matrix matched by age, sex, stroke severity, stroke subtype, the presence of vascular risk factors, glucose on admission, pre-admission status and risk stratum.

The Subarachnoid Hemorrhage International Trialists (SAHIT)

The SAHIT (Subarachnoid Hemorrhage International Trialists) Repository is a combined database of many of the most recent clinical trials that have been conducted in subarachnoid hemorrhage. The aim of this database is to provide a pooled resource from which more representative analyses could be performed that researchers around the world use to plan future clinical trials. This pooled resource will guide clinical trials in subarachnoid hemorrhage as well as aid in the development of prognostic models of subarachnoid hemorrhage. This repository currently contains data on 14,000+ SAH patients from sites all over North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

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