For ischemic brain damage, is preclinical evidence of neuroprotection by presynaptic blockade of glutamate release enough?

Some drugs blocking glutamate release produce reduced brain injury in some animal models of cerebral ischemia whereas others lack a clear effect. Meta -analysis is a widely used technique in clinical and epidemiological studie s. However, it has never been used in the analysis of preclinical studies. In order to estimate quantitatively the current state of the knowledge conc erning the neuroprotective effect of drugs inhibiting glutamate release and to attempt to resolve the apparent controversy in relation to the neuropro tective properties of these drugs, a metaanalysis was performed. It identif ied a significant difference between drugs blocking glutamate release and c ontrols. Therefore, we hypothesize that inhibition of presynaptic glutamate release could be a major goal in neuroprotection when ischemic brain damag e is present and that meta-analysia could be a useful tool for preclinical studies. (C) 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.