The store of scientific information regarding stroke and recovery from it is changing and growing daily. Accordingly, for this newsletter, I have asked three experts to provide some comments concerning the pathophysiology of stroke. For some of us, this should serve as an update; for others, the information might be entirely new. The authors and I hope you will find it both interesting and worthwhile.

My first introduction to neuroprotection was in the context of neurotrauma. At that time, several years ago, advances in rapid transport and hospital care seemed to have reached their limit, while patients continued to suffer devastating consequences of their injuries. The emergence of treatments that might actually protect the brain from injury offered tremendous new hope. I soon learned that the term neuroprotection originated decades ago in research on stroke (although my husband, Erwin B. Montgomery, Jr., who specializes in movement disorders, claims that its first widespread clinical application was the use of Eldepryl for Parkinson’s disease). The concept probably dates back even further, including the practice of packing children in ice to reduce cerebral metabolic demand during heart surgery.