Environmental influences on functional outcome after a cortical infarct in the rat

Risedal, Anette; Mattsson, Bengt; Dahlqvist, Per; Nordborg, Claes; Olsson, Tommy; Johansson, Barbro

doi:10.1016/s0361-9230(02)00796-7

Cited by 113 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…This also seems to be true in the case of enrichment before cortical lesions where enrichment was superior to physical activity alone (52). Several studies assert that social interaction is the most important component (29,31,53), whereas others suggest that exercise (usually wheel-running) is most critical (54)(55)(56). Exercise (wheel-running) or environment enrichment after acute SCI produced similar functional improvements (57).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Functional Recovery in Rats With Chronic Spinal Cord Injuries After Exposure to an Enriched Environment

Fischer

Péduzzi

2007

The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine

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Background/Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the effect of environmental enrichment on the sensorimotor function of rats with chronic spinal cord injuries.Design: Adult Sprague-Dawley rats received a contusive injury of moderate severity at vertebral level T8 using a weight-drop device. Three months after injury, 1 randomized group (n ¼ 16) of rats was placed in an enriched environment, whereas the control group (n ¼ 16) remained housed in standard laboratory cages (2/cage).Methods: Animals were placed in an enriched environment for 4 weeks beginning at 3 months after injury. The enriched environment consisted of a large cage (5-6 rats/cage) with access to items such as tubes, ramps, and running wheel, with items changed daily.Main Outcome Measures: Functional evaluation consisted of the open field Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor test and the tests that form the combined behavioral score (CBS). The CBS includes motor score, toe spread, placing, withdrawal, righting, inclined plane, hot plate, and swim tests. Behavioral testing was repeated 7 times before and after the period of intervention.Results: The group placed in the enriched environment scored significantly better on the BBB (ANOVA repeated-measures, P , 0.01) test and CBS (ANOVA repeated-measures, P , 0.01).Conclusions: Environmental enrichment results in significant functional improvement in animals with spinal cord injury even with a substantial delay in initiating treatment after injury. The features of an enriched environment that may be responsible for the improvement include social interactions, exercise, and novel items in an interesting environment. These findings suggest a continued plasticity of the chronically injured rat spinal cord and a possible therapeutic intervention for people with spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord Med. 2007;30:147-155 J

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Functional Recovery in Rats With Chronic Spinal Cord Injuries After Exposure to an Enriched Environment

Fischer

Péduzzi

2007

The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine

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“…In our previous study, both ischemic animals receiving no treatment and control animals were singly housed, whereas social housing was used here. Social housing has been shown to produce changes in brain morphology (Connor et al, 1982) and improve recovery (Risedal et al, 2002) relative to isolated animals. It is possible that the social-housing conditions implemented here may have enhanced dendritic complexity, thereby reducing the anatomical differences between ER14 and untreated ischemic animals observed in our previous study .…”

Section: Early Rehabilitation (Er5) Does Not Exacerbate Infarct Size mentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy of Rehabilitative Experience Declines with Time after Focal Ischemic Brain Injury

Biernaskie¹,

Chernenko²,

Corbett³

2004

J. Neurosci.

609

463

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To maximize the effectiveness of rehabilitative therapies after stroke, it is critical to determine when the brain is most responsive (i.e., plastic) to sensorimotor experience after injury and to focus such efforts within this period. Here, we compared the efficacy of 5 weeks of enriched rehabilitation (ER) initiated at 5 d (ER5), ER14, or ER30 after focal ischemia, as judged by functional outcome and neuromorphological change. ER5 provided marked improvement in skilled forelimb reaching ability and ladder-rung-and narrow-beam-walking tasks and attenuated the stroke-induced reliance on the unaffected forepaw for postural support. ER14 provided improvement to a somewhat lesser extent, whereas recovery was diminished after ER30 such that motor function did not differ from ischemic animals exposed to social housing.To examine potential neural substrates of the improved function, we examined dendritic morphology in the undamaged motor cortex because our previous work (Biernaskie and Corbett, 2001) suggested that recovery was associated with enhanced dendritic growth in this region. ER5 increased the number of branches and complexity of layer V neurons compared with both social housing and control animals. Dendritic arbor after ER14 (although increased) and ER30 did not differ from those exposed to social housing. These data suggest that the poststroke brain displays heightened sensitivity to rehabilitative experience early after the stroke but declines with time. These findings have important implications for rehabilitation of stroke patients, many of whom experience considerable delays before therapy is initiated.

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“…This may explain why recovery was only mildly affected. Rehabilitation is believed to be most effective when it is of increasing intensity, both in clinical [41] and experimental [33] studies, and rats given free access to running wheels for several hours per day naturally increase their activity over time [42][43][44][45][46] . It is possible that as animals in the present study became increasingly accustomed to the rehabilitation, they became disinterested during the daily 30 min sessions.…”

Section: Wwwchinapharcom Livingston-thomas Jm Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel approach to induction and rehabilitation of deficits in forelimb function in a rat model of ischemic stroke

et al. 2012

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Aim: Constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMt), which forces use of the impaired arm following unilateral stroke, promotes functional recovery in the clinic but animal models of CIMT have yielded mixed results. The aim of this study is to develop a refined endothelin-1 (ET-1) model of focal ischemic injury in rats that resulted in reproducible, well-defined lesions and reliable upper extremity impairments, and to determine if an appetitively motivated form of rehabilitation (voluntary forced use movement therapy; FuMt) would accelerate post-ischemic motor recovery. Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats (3 months old) were given multiple intracerebral microinjections of et-1 into the sensorimotor cortex and dorsolateral striatum. Sham-operated rats received the same surgical procedure up to but not including the drill holes on the skull. Functional deficits were assessed using two tests of forelimb placing, a forelimb postural reflex test, a forelimb asymmetry test, and a horizontal ladder test. In a separate experiment et-1 stroke rats were subjected to daily rehabilitation with FuMt or with a control therapy beginning on post-surgery d 5. Performance and post-mortem analysis of lesion volume and regional BDnF expression were measured. Results: Following microinjections of ET-1 animals exhibited significant deficits in contralateral forelimb function on a variety of tests compared with the sham group. These deficits persisted for up to 20 d with no mortality and were associated with consistent lesion volumes. FUMT therapy resulted in a modest but significantly accelerated recovery in the forelimb function as compared with the control therapy, but did not affect lesion size or BDnF expression in the ipsilesional hemisphere. Conclusion: We conclude that refined ET-1 microinjection protocols and forcing use of the impaired forelimb in an appetitively motivated paradigm may prove useful in developing strategies to study post-ischemic rehabilitation and neuroplasticity.

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Environmental influences on functional outcome after a cortical infarct in the rat

Cited by 113 publications

References 50 publications

Functional Recovery in Rats With Chronic Spinal Cord Injuries After Exposure to an Enriched Environment

Functional Recovery in Rats With Chronic Spinal Cord Injuries After Exposure to an Enriched Environment

Efficacy of Rehabilitative Experience Declines with Time after Focal Ischemic Brain Injury

A novel approach to induction and rehabilitation of deficits in forelimb function in a rat model of ischemic stroke

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