3. Inclusion and exclusion criteria Describe any criteria used for including or excluding animals (or experimental units) during the experiment, and data points during the analysis. Specify if these criteria were established a priori. If no criteria were set, state this explicitly. examples

“The animals were included in the study if they underwent successful MCA occlusion (MCAo), defined by a 60% or greater drop in cerebral blood flow seen with laser Doppler flowmetry. The animals were excluded if insertion of the thread resulted in perforation of the vessel wall (determined by the presence of sub-arachnoid blood at the time of sacrifice), if the silicon tip of the thread became dislodged during withdrawal, or if the animal died prematurely, preventing the collection of behavioral and histological data.” [1]