A Within-Animal Comparison of Skilled Forelimb Assessments in Rats.
A variety of skilled reaching tasks have been developed to evaluate forelimb function in rodent models. The single pellet skilled reaching task and pasta matrix task have provided valuable insight into recovery of forelimb function in models of neurological injury and disease. Recently, several automated measures have been developed to reduce the cost and time burden of forelimb assessment in rodents. Here, we provide a within-subject comparison of three common forelimb assessments to allow direct evaluation of sensitivity and efficiency across tasks. Rats were trained to perform the single pellet skilled reaching task, the pasta matrix task, and the isometric pull task. Once proficient on all three tasks, rats received an ischemic lesion of motor cortex and striatum to impair use of the trained limb. On the second week post-lesion, all three tasks measured a significant deficit in forelimb function. Performance was well-correlated across tasks. By the sixth week post-lesion, only the isometric pull task measured a significant deficit in forelimb function, suggesting that this task is more sensitive to chronic impairments. The number of training days required to reach asymptotic performance was longer for the isometric pull task, but the total experimenter time required to collect and analyze data was substantially lower. These findings suggest that the isometric pull task represents an efficient, sensitive measure of forelimb function to facilitate preclinical evaluation in models of neurological injury and disease.
Vulintus, Inc., Dallas, Texas, United States of America; University of Texas at Dallas, Texas Biomedical Device Center, Richardson, Texas, United States of America.
Andrew M
AM
Sloan
University of Texas at Dallas, Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Richardson, Texas, United States of America.
Melyssa K
MK
Fink
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Neurology and Neurotherapeutics, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
Amber J
AJ
Rodriguez
University of Texas at Dallas, Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Richardson, Texas, United States of America.
Adam M
AM
Lovitz
University of Texas at Dallas, Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Richardson, Texas, United States of America.
Navid
N
Khodaparast
University of Texas at Dallas, Texas Biomedical Device Center, Richardson, Texas, United States of America; University of Texas at Dallas, Bioengineering, Richardson, Texas, United States of America.
Robert L
RL
Rennaker
University of Texas at Dallas, Bioengineering, Richardson, Texas, United States of America.
Seth A
SA
Hays
D000818:Animals; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000502:physiology; D005552:Forelimb / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000068079:Motor Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley