Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Intracerebral Hemorrhagic Rats after Alcohol Consumption

Background: Alcoholism is one of the risk factors for cerebrovascular diseases. Our previous study demonstrated that acute alcohol intoxication enhances brain injury and neurological impairment in rats suffering from intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). We plan to investigate the effect of chronic alcohol consumption (CAC) in rats with ICH by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: Sixteen Sprague-Dawley male rats were divided into 2 groups: CAC group (fed with 10% alcohol drinking water for 4 weeks, n = 8), and Control group (plain drinking water, n = 8). ICH was induced by collagenase infusion into the right striata of all rats. Coronal Tl-weighted imaging, T2-weighted imaging, T2*-weighted imaging, and diffusion-weighted imaging were generated with a 3.0T MRI scanner to investigate the changes of hemorrhagic volume and edema throughout the injury and recovery stages of ICH in rats. Results: T2-weighted imaging is ideal for monitoring hematoma volume in rats. The hematoma volume was larger in the CAC group than in the control group (P < .001), however, did not correlate to post-ICH progressive edema formation (P > .7), and neurological impairment (P > .28) between the 2 groups, respectively. Discussion: Although our findings indicate that CAC induces larger hematoma in rats with ICH, the underlying mechanism should be studied in the future.