Motor response to amphetamine treatment, task-specific training, and limited motor experience in a postacute animal stroke model.
Despite advances in acute treatment of ischemic cerebrovascular events, the most common clinical outcome is disabling neurological impairment. Despite experimental evidence that psychostimulant treatment can positively affect recovery rate after focal brain lesions, beyond rehabilitation therapies there are no currently accepted medical treatments indicated for diminishing neurological impairment after clinically established stroke. To test the effect of amphetamine, task-specific training, limiting motor experience, and their interaction on motor recovery in a postacute animal model of stroke, animals were nonaversively trained in beam walking before a unilateral photochemical sensorimotor cortex lesion and tested for 10 days after lesion. Animals were randomized to groups receiving: a single session of motor training 24 h after lesion; a single injection of amphetamine 2 mg/kg 24 h after lesion; beam-walking experience limited to testing on days 1 and 10 after lesion; and groups that received amphetamine treatment combined with training or combined with limited experience. Motor recovery was maximally enhanced by training, delayed by amphetamine treatment, and most negatively affected by limiting beam-walking experience during the recovery period. These findings support physical training after stroke, indicating that limiting physical activity negatively affects motor recovery and raises questions about the role of stimulant treatment to enhance motor recovery in the postacute phase after stroke.
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. brown.allen@mayo.edu
Allen W
AW
Brown
Börje
B
Bjelke
Kjell
K
Fuxe
D000661:Amphetamine / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D000818:Animals; D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D018450:Disease Progression; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020127:Recovery of Function / Q000187:drug effects; D020521:Stroke / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants; D000661:Amphetamine