Standardization of a cerebral malaria murine model in clinical stages for antimalarial and rescue therapies evaluation

Cerebral malaria (CM) is included among the more devastating SNC infectious diseases due to its high mortality and severe sequelae in children. Currently, no specific pharmacological treatment for CM or rescue therapy for neurocognitive residual injury are available, and research on this topic has been hampered due to the lack of well-defined experimental models. In the present study we have characterized the CM murine infection phenotypically, evaluating clinical parameters, which allowed establishing a model encompassing four distinct disease stages. This protocol provides the experimental framework to study adjunctive neuroprotective therapies that may prevent and/or eliminate the neurological sequelae in individuals surviving CM.