This is a revised competitive continuation proposal for a Clinical Stroke Research Center. The goals are the development of means to understand, prevent, and treat stroke and its consequences. In the first of three projects, we propose a case control study of stroke in young women aged 15 to 45 living in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. Special emphasis will be on the use of oral contraceptives and migraine headaches as risk factors for stroke in this biracial population. The second project would establish the comparative prevalence of drug use/abuse in patients presenting with stroke in a case-control study. Tests of serum and a questionnaire would be utilized. In the third project, we propose to study progressing ischemic stroke by validating an already developed predictor, by trying to develop a predictor for patients seen soon after stroke and by studying putative mechanisms of progression.
