title: Adult hemiparkinsonian rats do not benefit from tactile stimulation.
abstract: Tactile stimulation (TS) applied to adult rats after cortical injury (medial frontal cortex aspiration or sensorimotor pial stripping stroke model) has been previously shown to ameliorate behavioral impairments and to improve morphological parameters like dendritic length of prefrontal cortical neurons (Gibb et al., 2010). The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of TS on healthy and hemiparkinsonian adult rats. Therefore, the animals received TS for 14 days and 15 min three times daily. At different time points rats were tested in various behavioral tests (amphetamine-induced rotation, cylinder test, staircase test). Finally, rats were sacrificed, their brains removed, and processed for Golgi-Cox analyses, tyrosine hydroxylase immunohistochemistry and quantitative RT-PCR. We found that the striatal 6-OHDA lesion itself induced a long-term increase of astroglial Fgf2 transcript levels, but was not further increased by TS. In contrast TS applied to healthy rats elicited a transient short-term increase of Fgf2 in the striatum and Bdnf, Grin1, and Fgf2 in the hippocampus. Moreover, behavioral and histological analyses do not support a beneficial effect of TS for hemiparkinsonian rats, applied for two weeks starting one day after partial striatal 6-OHDA lesion.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroanatomy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Effenberg
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroanatomy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.affiliation: Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience, The University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Robbin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gibb
authors.affiliation: Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience, The University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Cathy
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Carroll
authors.affiliation: Centre for Systems Neuroscience (ZSN), Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; Department of Pathology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Baumgärtner
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroanatomy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; Centre for Systems Neuroscience (ZSN), Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grothe
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroanatomy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany. Electronic address: ratzka.andreas@mh-hannover.de.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ratzka
mesh_terms: D018663:Adrenergic Agents / Q000633:toxicity; D000661:Amphetamine; D000818:Animals; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000378:metabolism; D003712:Dendrites / Q000473:pathology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D016627:Oxidopamine / Q000633:toxicity; D020734:Parkinsonian Disorders / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000293:injuries / Q000473:pathology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D013997:Time Factors; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D018663:Adrenergic Agents; D016627:Oxidopamine; D000661:Amphetamine
keywords: Dopaminergic neuron; Parkinson's disease; Striatum; Tactile stimulation