Molecular mechanisms and nutritional factors influencing post-stroke affective disorders

The biological mechanisms underlying stroke-related affective symptomatology, depressive disorder, anxiety and hyperactive delirium, were studied. The hypothesis that stroke-associated degeneration of cellular networks is linked to stroke-associated behavioural and affective disorders were explored. The effects of polyunsaturated-fatty-acids and homocysteine, capable of mediating cellular-degeneration, in the aetiology stroke-associated affective symptomatology, were additionally studied. The findings suggest that stroke-induced cell-death is associated with the presentation of depressive, anxious and hyperactive symptomatology, and that nutritional factors which influence the processes of cell-death, may also influence these behavioural outcomes. However, a possible detrimental effect of nutritional supplementation, on risk of bleeding, was identified.