Although exercise usually improves motor performance, the underlying cellular changes in the cerebellum remain to be elucidated. This study aimed to investigate whether and how chronic treadmill exercise in young rats induced Purkinje cell changes to improve motor performance and rendered the cerebellum less vulnerable to toxin insults. After 1-wk familiarization of treadmill running, 6-wk-old ...

We have studied the motor abilities and associative learning capabilities of adult mice placed in different enriched environments. Three-month-old animals were maintained for a month alone (AL), alone in a physically enriched environment (PHY), and, finally, in groups in the absence (SO) or presence (SOPHY) of an enriched environment. The animals' capabilities were subsequently checked in the r...

Dual orexin receptor antagonists (DORAs) are a potential treatment for insomnia that function by blocking both the orexin 1 and orexin 2 receptors. The objective of the current study was to further confirm the impact of therapeutic mechanisms targeting insomnia on locomotor coordination and ethanol interaction using DORAs and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-A receptor modulators of distinct chem...

General electric devices and ventilation systems are known to generate low frequency noise (LFN) with frequencies of <100 Hz. Previous studies showed that exposure to LFN caused impairments of balance in humans and mice during adulthood. On the other hand, a previous study showed that noise levels in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) were greater than those in general home or office envir...

The purposes of the present study were to investigate the effects of perinatal thiamine deficiency, from the 11th day of gestation until the 5th day of lactation, on motor behavior and neurochemical parameters in adult rat offspring, using 3-month-old, adult, male Wistar rats. All rats were submitted to motor tests, using the rotarod and paw print tasks. After behavioral tests, their thalamus, ...

Age related decline in balance performance is associated with deteriorating muscle strength, motor coordination and vestibular function. While a number of studies show changes in balance phenotype with age in rodents, very few isolate the vestibular contribution to balance under either normal conditions or during senescence. We use two standard behavioral tests to characterize the balance perfo...

Motor and behavioral abnormalities are common presentations among individuals with HIV-1 associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). We investigated whether longitudinal motor and behavioral performance in the HIV-1 transgenic rat (Tg), a commonly used neuro-HIV model, corresponded to in vivo neuronal death/dysfunction, by using rotarod and open field testing in parallel to [18F] 2-fluoro-2-deo...

Mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) show both cognitive and neuromotor impairments. We measured motor ability and motor learning of male and female triple transgenic (3×Tg-AD) and control (B6129SF1/J) mice on the accelerating Rotarod in a cross-sectional design at 2, 6, 9, 12, and 15 months of age. At all ages except for 2 months, transgenic mice performed better and had a steeper motor le...

In humans, neuroligin-3 mutations are associated with autism, whereas in mice, the corresponding mutations produce robust synaptic and behavioral changes. However, different neuroligin-3 mutations cause largely distinct phenotypes in mice, and no causal relationship links a specific synaptic dysfunction to a behavioral change. Using rotarod motor learning as a proxy for acquired repetitive beha...

Neurons of the cerebellar nuclei (CbN) transmit cerebellar signals to premotor areas. The cerebellum expresses several autism-linked genes, including GABRB3, which encodes GABAA receptor β3 subunits and is among the maternal alleles deleted in Angelman syndrome. We tested how this Gabrb3 m-/p+ mutation affects CbN physiology in mice, separating responses of males and females. Wild-type mice sho...