gidday

But last year Gidday developed a preconditioning protocol that extended the effects of tolerance from days to months.

By exposing mice to hypoxia, or low oxygen concentrations, several times over a two-week period, Gidday and colleagues triggered an extended period of tolerance.

"Once we discovered tolerance could be extended, we wondered whether this protracted period of injury resistance could also protect against the slow, progressive loss of neurons that characterizes neurodegenerative diseases," Gidday says.

To find out, Gidday turned to an animal model of glaucoma, a condition linked to increases in the pressure of the fluid that fills the eye.

Gidday hopes his new finding will promote studies of tolerance's potential usefulness in animal models of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.

"Neurons in the central nervous system appear to be hard-wired for survival," Gidday says.

Gidday, "Hypoxic preconditioning induces stroke tolerance in mice via a cascading HIF, sphingosine kinase, and CCL2 signaling pathway," Journal of Neurochemistry, vol.

Gidday, "Hypoxic preconditioning-induced cerebral ischemic tolerance: role of microvascular sphingosine kinase 2," Stroke, vol.