Progressive deterioration of reaction time performance and choreiform symptoms in a new Huntington's disease transgenic ratmodel.
We tested the hypothesis that a recently developed transgenic rat model of Huntington's disease (tgHD rats) showed an age-and genotype-dependent change in psychomotor performance and in the frequency of choreiform movements similar to HD patients. Wild type and tgHD (homozygotic and heterozygotic) rats were behaviorally tested at an age of 15 and 20 months. Our results show that tgHD rats exhibit an age-, and genotype-dependent deterioration of the psychomotor performance and choreiform symptoms, closely mimicking the clinical time course changes of psychomotor symptoms of HD patients. These data provide further experimental evidence that the tgHD rat can be considered as a relevant animal model of HD.
Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, Division of Cellular Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Chunyan
C
Cao
Yasin
Y
Temel
Arjan
A
Blokland
Hatice
H
Ozen
Harry W M
HW
Steinbusch
Rinske
R
Vlamings
Huu Phuc
HP
Nguyen
Stephan
S
von Hörsten
Christoph
C
Schmitz
Veerle
V
Visser-Vandewalle
D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D018450:Disease Progression; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005838:Genotype; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D019680:Trinucleotide Repeat Expansion / Q000235:genetics
D009687:Nuclear Proteins