TY - JOUR
T1 - Complex assessment of distinct cognitive impairments following ouabain injection into the rat dorsoloateral striatum
AU - Gornicka-Pawlak, Elzbieta
AU - Janowski, Miroslaw
AU - Jablonska, Anna
AU - Sypecka, Joanna
AU - Domanska-Janik, Krystyna
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Robert Kuba Filipkowski for detailed comments enabling us ‘to come out of the box’. We also thank Mary McAllister for editorial assistance. The study was supported by Polish Ministry of Scientific Research and Higher Education , grant no. 0394/B/P01/2010/38 and the Mossakowski Medical Research Center statutory funds .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2015/8/1
Y1 - 2015/8/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - 'What - where' memory
KW - Cognitive flexibility
KW - Cognitive impairments
KW - Focal brain injury
KW - Habit learning
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U2 - 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.03.061
DO - 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.03.061
M3 - Article
C2 - 25845737
AN - SCOPUS:84929494026
SN - 0166-4328
VL - 289
SP - 133
EP - 140
JO - Behavioural Brain Research
JF - Behavioural Brain Research
ER -