The treatment of insulin resistance to improve stroke recovery in pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes

AimType 2 diabetic (T2D) and elderly people have severe/persistent post-stroke disabilities and the causal mechanisms are unknown.

Insulin resistance (IR), which is a hallmark of T2D, also afflicts up to 50% of non-diabetic elderly people (prediabetic). IR has been associated to poor stroke outcome.

However, if the pharmacological targeting of IR improves stroke recovery is unknown and will be addressed in this experimental project.Project organisation/time plan/methodsThe project’s duration is 3-years.

Most of the activities will take place at the PI’s lab where validated IR (aging- and high sucrose-induced), and stroke (middle cerebral artery occlusion) mouse models plus lab facilities are in place. One post-doc and one PhD student will perform the experiments. Stroke and T2D expertise is provided by co-PIs Dr Vladimer Darsalia and Prof Thomas Nyström.

The cellular studies are in collaboration with Profs Gesine Paul (Lund Univ) and Milos Pekny (Gothenburg Univ).Relevance/ImplementationT2D and aging impair stroke recovery.

Since T2D is reaching epidemic dimensions, the elderly population continues to grow, and both conditions are strong stroke risk factors, this creates a social burden with rising medical need.

Positive results of this project will be important to develop new therapies targeting IR, in the preventive perspective to limit stroke sequelae in two of the largest populations at stroke risk. This could have remarkable implications for an enormous group of people.