Automated lever task with minimum antigravity movement for rats with cervical spinal cord injury
Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 2022-01-01; 366: 109433
DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2021.109433
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Samejima S(1), Ievins AM(2), Boissenin A(3), Tolley NM(3), Khorasani A(3),
Mondello SE(3), Moritz CT(4).
Author information:
(1)Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA,
United States; Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of
Washington, Seattle, WA, United States; UW Institute for Neural Engineering,
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States; The Center for
Neurotechnology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
(2)Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA,
United States; Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Washington,
Seattle, WA, United States.
(3)Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA,
United States.
(4)Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA,
United States; Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of
Washington, Seattle, WA, United States; Graduate Program in Neuroscience,
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States; UW Institute for Neural
Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States; The Center
for Neurotechnology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States;
Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA,
United States. Electronic address: .
BACKGROUND: Although there is currently no cure for paralysis due to spinal cord
injury (SCI), the highest treatment priority is restoring arm and hand function
for people with cervical SCI. Preclinical animal models provide an opportunity
to test innovative treatments, but severe cervical injury models require
significant time and effort to assess responses to novel interventions.
Moreover, there is no behavioral task that can assess forelimb movement in rats
with severe cervical SCI unable to perform antigravity movements.
NEW METHOD: We developed a novel lever pressing task for rats with severe
cervical SCI. We employed an automated adaptive algorithm to train animals using
open-source software and commercially available hardware. We found that using
the adaptive training required only 13.3 ± 2.5 training days to achieve
behavioral proficiency. The lever press task could quantify immediate and
long-term improvements in severely impaired forelimb function effectively. This
behavior platform has potential to facilitate rehabilitative training and assess
effects of therapeutic modalities following SCI.
COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHODS: There is no existing assessment aiming to
quantify forelimb extension movement in rodents without function against
gravity. We found that the new lever press task in the antigravity position
could assess the severity of cervical SCI as well as the compensatory movement
in the proximal forelimb less affected by the injury.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that the new behavioral task is capable of
tracking the functional changes with various therapies in rats with severe
forelimb impairments in a cost- and time-efficient manner.
Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2021.109433
PMID: 34863839 [Indexed for MEDLINE]