He, F. et al. Sci. Adv. 6, eaba1933 (2020)

Neurovascular coupling—the close spatial and temporal relationship between local neural activity and cerebral blood flow (CBF)—is altered in stroke. However, few studies have measured neural and hemodynamic activities simultaneously to explore how the interaction between CBF and neuronal activity develops over time in stroke models.

Using a new multimodal neural interface enabling the repeated mapping of CBF and electrical activity in the same brain regions of mice for up to 8 weeks after stroke, a study reveals a long-lasting dissociation between CBF and neuronal responses after injury; these findings also inform the limitation of neuroimaging techniques that use hemodynamic parameters as a proxy for neural activity for brain ischemic states.