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Clinical Stroke Research

The clinical research activities centre around the use of new MRI techniques, particularly diffusion and perfusion imaging in early cerebral ischaemia and functional MRI. As well as looking at the ischaemic penumbra in territorial infarcts, which include cerebral cortex, we are interested in subcortical infarction and are currently exploring the validity of the lacunar hypothesis. We are participating in a multi-centre diffusion and perfusion MRI study of the role of tPA in limiting the progression of MRI lesions in acute stroke between 3 and 6 hours from onset of symptoms.

Other interests are transcranial Doppler ultrasound and embolus detection, procedure-related cerebrovascular complications, and the clinical and MRI characteristics of the non-haemorrhagic manifestations of cerebral amyloid angiopathy.

Our centre is a foundation member of the Australasian Stroke Trials Network and we are currently participating in a number of international randomised trials of acute stroke therapies and secondary prevention therapies, as well as investigator-driven multicentre trials.

Selected references:

Gerraty RP. Clinical diagnosis of subcortical cerebral infarction. Expert Rev Neurotherapeutics 2003; 3: 89–97.

Gerraty RP. Stroke prevention—what's new? Int Med J 2003; 33: 177–181.

Gerraty RP, Parsons MW, Barber PA, Darby DG, Desmond PM, Tress BM, Davis SM. Examining the lacunar hypothesis with diffusion and perfusion MRI. Stroke 2002; 33: 2019–2024.

Parsons MW, Barber PA, Chalk J, Darby DG, Rose S, Desmond PM, Gerraty RP, Tress BM, Wright PM, Donnan GA, Davis SM. Diffusion and perfusion weighted MRI response to thrombolysis in stroke. Ann Neurol 2002; 51: 28–37.

Desmond PM, Lovell AC, Rawlinson AA, Parsons MW, Barber PA, Yang Q, Li T, Darby DG, Gerraty RP, Davis SM, Tress BM. The Value of apparent diffusion coefficient maps in early cerebral ischemia. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 2001; 22: 1260–1267.

Gerraty RP, Parsons MW, Barber PA, Darby DG, Davis SM. The volume of lacunes. Stroke 2001; 32: 1937–1938

Parsons MW. Yang Q. Barber PA. Darby DG. Desmond PM. Gerraty RP. Tress BM. Davis SM. Perfusion magnetic resonance imaging maps in hyperacute stroke – Relative cerebral blood flow most accurately identifies tissue destined to infarct. Stroke 2001; 32:1581-1587.