Neuronal damage following repeated brief ischemia in the gerbil.

The effect of repetition of brief ischemia, which causes no morphological brain damage when given as a single insult, was studied. Two-minute forebrain ischemia was induced in gerbils singly and 3 or 5 times at 60-min intervals. Although 2-min ischemia induced no neuronal damage, 3 or 5 repeated ischemic insults caused neuronal damage in the selectively vulnerable regions, the severity being dependent on the number of episodes.