title: Complex assessment of distinct cognitive impairments following ouabain injection into the rat dorsoloateral striatum.
abstract: A stroke in humans may induce focal injury to the brain tissue resulting in various disabilities. Although motor deficits are the most discernible, cognitive impairments seem to be crucial for patients mental well-being. The current lack of effective treatments encourages scientists and clinicians to develop novel approaches. Before applying them in clinic, testing for safety and effectiveness in non-human models is necessary. Such animal model should include significant cognitive impairments resulting from brain lesion. We used ouabain stereotactic injection into the right dorsolateral striatum of male Wistar rats, and enriched environment housing. To confirm the brain injury before cognitive testing, rats were given a beam-walking task to evaluate the level of sensorimotor deficits. To determine the cognitive impairment after focal brain damage, rats underwent a set of selected tasks over an observation period of 30 days. Brain injury induced by ouabain significantly impaired the acquisition of the T-maze habit learning task, where 'win-stay' strategy rules were applied. The injured rats also showed significant deficits in the performance of the T-maze switching task, which involved shifting from multiple clues previously relevant to the only one important clue. Focal brain injury also significantly changed 'what--where' memory, tested in the object exploration task, in which a novel object consecutively appeared in the same place while the location of a familiar item was continuously changed. In conclusion, we developed an animal model of distinct cognitive impairments after focal brain injury that provides a convenient method to test the effectiveness of restorative therapies.
authors.affiliation: NeuroRepair Department, Mossakowski Medical Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. Electronic address: elago@autograf.pl.
authors.forename: Elzbieta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gornicka-Pawlak
authors.affiliation: NeuroRepair Department, Mossakowski Medical Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland; Department of Neurosurgery, Mossakowski Medical Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Miroslaw
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Janowski
authors.affiliation: NeuroRepair Department, Mossakowski Medical Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jablonska
authors.affiliation: NeuroRepair Department, Mossakowski Medical Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sypecka
authors.affiliation: NeuroRepair Department, Mossakowski Medical Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland; Stem Cell Bioengineering Unit, Mossakowski Medical Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Krystyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Domanska-Janik
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000150:complications*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006184:Habits; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D017072:Neostriatum / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology*; D010042:Ouabain / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000633:toxicity; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
chemical_list: D010042:Ouabain
keywords: Cognitive flexibility; Cognitive impairments; Focal brain injury; Habit learning; ‘What – where’ memory