Assessing functional outcomes following intracerebral hemorrhage in rats.
Translational neuroprotective and drug development studies need to be gauged against well-characterized functional outcomes, including motor, sensory and cognitive domains. Since intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) causes dramatic neurological and cognitive deficits in humans, we hypothesized that ICH would result in prolonged motor-sensory and learning/memory deficits in rats. Neurological tests of sensorimotor functions were performed before ICH, 1-3 days and 10 weeks after ICH. Water maze, open field, and rotarod performance was tested 2 and 8 weeks after ICH. Early neurological evaluations revealed significant deficits, with almost full recovery by 10 weeks. The water maze revealed significant learning (but not motor) deficits at 2 weeks, but by 8 weeks, the learning deficits had diminished and significant motor deficits had emerged, coinciding with a drop in activity. The injured hemisphere showed significant atrophy at sacrifice. Therefore, ICH produced detectable cognitive and motor deficits in rats that evolved over a 10-week period, and thereby provides a suitable baseline for analysis of future therapeutic interventions following hemorrhagic stroke.
Hartman
Richard
R
Department of Psychology, Loma Linda University Medical Center, Loma Linda, California, USA. behavioralneuroscience@gmail.com
Lekic
Tim
T
Rojas
Hugo
H
Tang
Jiping
J
Zhang
John H
JH
D000375:Aging; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D020300:Intracranial Hemorrhages / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D009043:Motor Activity; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020127:Recovery of Function; D013997:Time Factors