INTR10

Authors:

Papazoglou A, Jiang W, Diaconu O, Büchele F, Kohn-Cordeiro K, Döbrössy MD, Nikkhah G

Institutions:

Department of Stereotactic Neurosurgery, Laboratory of Molecular Neurosurgery,
Neurocentre, University Hospital Freiburg, Breisacher Str. 64, 79106 Freiburg, Germany

Title of abstract : The influence of pellet density on the graft-induced functional recovery in a skilled paw-reaching test in the rodent unilateral 6-OHDA Parkinson’s disease model

Abstract text:

The Staircase test (Montoya et al, 1991) was established to measure side-specific deficits in skilled paw reaching in rats. The apparatus includes two staircases located one on either side of a central plinth. Food pellets are positioned onto each of the 6 steps of the staircases allowing rats to reach down either side of a plinth to grasp, lift and retrieve food pellets from the steps of the staircase. The number of pellets retrieved, or moved, provides a quantifiable measure of the distance and efficiency of reaching skill. The aim of this study is to investigate the sensitivity of the test to detect functional recovery of grafted PD rats based on the number of pellets placed in each step.
44 Sprague Dawley rats were trained in the staircase boxes. They were unilaterally 6-OHDA lesioned and after a month half of the animals were transplanted with 400,000 ventral mescenchephalic rat E14 derived cells. Two and four weeks after lesion and transplantation, animals were tested for drug induced rotations. Transplanted and lesion animals were equally divided into two groups. Each group was tested in the staircase under one of the following conditions: i) HIGH: 6 stairwells baited with 10 pellets each (6×10); ii) LOW: 6 stairwells baited with 2 pellets each (6×2). Two weeks after the first training the animals were tested again by crossing over the conditions between the groups. Survival and integration of the grafted neurons were assessed by immunohistochemical analysis. This is an ongoing study and the evaluation staircase test will be presented at the conference.

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