Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 15, 5372-5378, Copyright © 1995 by Society for Neuroscience
Elevated body swing test: a new behavioral parameter for rats with 6- hydroxydopamine-induced hemiparkinsonism
CV Borlongan and PR Sanberg
Department of Surgery, University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa 33612, USA.
Parkinson's disease is characterized by a depletion of dopamine (DA)
neurons in the nigrostriatal pathway. Stereotaxic injections of 6-
hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), a selective neurotoxin, into either the medial
forebrain bundle or the substantia nigra result in a massive DA denervation
of the nigrostriatal pathway. Following unilateral nigrostriatal DA
depletion, hemiparkinsonian animals develop a stereotypical rotational
behavior when challenged with DA agonists such as apomorphine. The
drug-induced rotational behavior has been widely used as the behavioral
index of hemiparkinsonian animals, but it has some limitations. Although
asymmetries in the rotational behavior may indicate an imbalance of DA
contents and release capacity in the bilateral nigrostriatal pathway, the
behavior is a pharmacological reaction. Accordingly, the drug-induced
rotation test is subject to sensitization effects. The present study
proposes the elevated body swing test (EBST) as a measure of asymmetrical
motor behavior of hemiparkinsonian animals in a drug-free state. The EBST
simply involves elevating the animal by handling its tail and recording the
frequency and direction of the swing behavior. Unilateral nigral
6-OHDA-lesioned rats exhibited significant biased swing activity with the
direction contralateral to the lesioned side, corresponding to the
direction of apomorphine-induced rotations. A 30 sec EBST was noted as the
peak time for biased swing activity. At 7 d postlesion (the start of
testing), and every week thereafter for a period of 2 months, a fairly
stable biased swing activity level was observed. At 1 and 2 months
postlesion, the same animals were also challenged with
apomorphine.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Previous Article | Next Article
