Abstract: In 2001, the concept of the neurovascular unit (NVU) was introduced at the Stroke Progress Review Group meeting. The NVU is an important element of the health and disease status of blood vessels and nerves in the central nervous system. Since then, the NVU has attracted increasing interest from research teams, who have contributed greatly to the prevention, treatment, and prognosis of stroke and neurodegenerative diseases. However, additional research is needed to establish an efficient, low-cost, and low-energy in vitro model of the neurovascular unit, as well as enable noninvasive observation of neurovascular units in vivo and in vitro. In this review, we first summarize the composition of neurovascular units, then investigate the efficacy of different types of stem cells and cell culture methods in the construction of neurovascular unit models, and finally assess the progress of imaging methods used to observe neurovascular units in recent years and their positive role in the monitoring and investigation of the mechanisms of a variety of central nervous system diseases.

Key words: 3D printing, blood-brain barrier, computational biology, encephalopathy research, imaging techniques, microfluidic on-chip methods, nerve cell co-culture, neurovascular unit, stem cells, systematic review