Mice are increasingly being used in behavioral neuroscience, largely replacing rats as the behaviorist's animal of choice. Before aspects of behavior such as emotionality or cognition can be assessed, however, it is vital to determine whether the motor capabilities of e.g. a mutant or lesioned mouse allow such an assessment. Performance on a maze task requiring strength and coordination, such a...

The discovery that aerobic exercise increases adult hippocampal neurogenesis and can enhance cognitive performance holds promise as a model for regenerative medicine. This study adds two new pieces of information to the rapidly growing field. First, we tested whether exercise increases vascular density in the granular layer of the dentate gyrus, whole hippocampus, and striatum in C57BL/6J mice ...

Oxidative stress and reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which is detoxified by catalase, are implicated in fetal death and birth defects, but embryonic levels of catalase are only about 5% of adult activity, and its protective role is unknown. Our approach involved the use of mice genetically modified to either: (1) express low levels of endogenous catalase (acatala...

Introduction To investigate the mechanism underlying increased risk of subsequent neurodevelopmental disorders in children born to mothers with preeclampsia, we evaluated neurodevelopment offspring a preeclampsia rat model induced by administration N-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) and identified unique protein signatures cerebrospinal fluid. Methods Pregnant rats received an intraperito...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Enhanced angiogenesis facilitates neurovascular remodeling processes and promotes brain functional recovery after stroke. Previous studies from our laboratory demonstrated that valproate (VPA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor, protects against experimental brain ischemia. The present study investigated whether VPA could enhance angiogenesis and promote long-term functiona...

PURPOSE Long term L-DOPA therapy in Parkinson's disease is associated with troublesome motor fluctuations such as L -DOPA Induced dyskinesia and wearing off effect. Our recent study showed that activation of 5-HT1A receptors could improve the anti-cataleptic effect of L-DOPA in parkinsonian rats. In this study we investigated the effect of fluoxetine on anti-parkinsonian effect of L-DOPA in 6-h...

Alcohol (ethanol) is widely consumed for its desirable effects but unfortunately has strong addiction potential. Some imidazobenzodiazepines such as Ro15-4513 are able to antagonize many ethanol-induced behaviors. Controversial biochemical and pharmacological evidence suggest that the effects of these ethanol antagonists and ethanol are mediated specifically via overlapping binding sites on α4/...

Locomotor activity is a polygenic trait that varies widely among inbred strains of mice (). To characterize the role of D2 dopamine receptors in locomotion, we generated F2 hybrid (129/Sv x C57BL/6) D2 dopamine receptor (D2R)-deficient mice by gene targeting and investigated the contribution of genetic background to open-field activity and rotarod performance. Horizontal activity of D2R-/- mice...

New neurons are continuously generated in the adult hippocampus but their function remains a mystery. The nestin thymidine kinase (nestin-TK) transgenic method has been used for selective and conditional reduction of neurogenesis for the purpose of testing the functional significance of new neurons in learning, memory and motor performance. Here we explored the nestin-TK model on a hybrid genet...