Recovery from lateralized neocortical damage: dissociation between amphetamine-induced asymmetry in behavior and striatal dopamine neurotransmission in vivo.

It has been hypothesized that neocortical damage is accompanied by secondary changes in other brain areas (the shock or diaschisis of von Monakow), which contributes to initial non-specific behavioral depression. The relation between behavioral changes and dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), and their metabolites, measured with intracerebral microdialysis in freely moving rats and by tissue assay postmortem, was examined during postsurgical recovery from unilateral hemidecortications. Rats were tested for rotational asymmetry and extracellular concentration of DA was measured both during rest and after amphetamine (1.5 mg/kg). It was found that: (1) during the first few postsurgical days the hemidecorticate rats rotated ipsilateral to their lesions after amphetamine but thereafter on tests given up to 121 days postsurgery concentration of DA or its metabolites at any time after surgery; (3) the 5-HT metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) was elevated acutely for a few days following surgery; (4) during the first 3 postoperative days, both baseline extracellular 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and amphetamine-induced DA release were significantly elevated bilaterally. These findings demonstrate that the acute behavioral asymmetry in rotation produced by hemidecortication is not related to unilateral changes in striatal DA activity and its metabolites. Thus, the behavioral asymmetries might be related to other striatal changes (i.e. 5-HIAA) or other damage, such as to the corticospinal projections of the lesioned hemisphere. Nevertheless, unilateral lesions did produce acute bilateral increases in DA levels, which may be a correlate of generalized neural shock produced by the lesion.