Constructing the perfect model of any pathology requires a number of essential criteria to be considered efficient and useful. Schwartz et al. suggested a few criteria that may assist in the creation of an ideal model of SAH [4]. The model should be reproducible with very little variation, inexpensive, produce a documented and controlled volume of hemorrhage in the correct location, and reproduce the clinical complications and secondary sequelae of SAH. The anterior approach model of SAH was constructed and adapted in mice keeping all of these criteria in mind. The model provides the research community with a number of advantages and with ease of reproducibility, some of which are listed in Table 1.

The prechiasmatic anterior model has demonstrated to be reproducible, reliable, and have very little intergroup variability. This model would be classed under injectable SAH models, and it allows for controlling the volume and source of blood injected – allowing the severity of the hemorrhage to be controlled and the use of either autologous or nonautologous blood (donor animals of the same genetic background). The model also reliably recreates the Cushings reflex, with an increased intracranial pressure (ICP) and reduced CBF with the induction of SAH. The model has been used in our laboratory extensively, and reliably reproduced a number of essential secondary complications such as microthrombosis, microcirculatory spasm, neuronal degeneration and apoptosis, and large vessel vasospasm. This makes the anterior model one of the most flexible and reliable models available to the SAH community, and certainly one that could be used for research involving early brain injury (EBI) after SAH. Other models that exist in mice provide a number of advantages and disadvantages that are listed in Table 2.