Abstract

CUCARIAN, Jaison D et al. Temporal and Spatial Characterization of Gait Pattern in Rodents as an Animal Model of Cerebrovascular Lesion. Acta biol.Colomb. [online]. 2017, vol.22, n.3, pp.307-321. ISSN 0120-548X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/abc.v22n3.65244.

Animal experimentation is crucial for the advance in the understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms and their application on both clinical diagnosis and neuro-rehabilitation. Particularly, rodent brain lesion is commonly used in the modeling of locomotor, somatosensory and cognitive symptoms. The automated rodent gait analysis has been proposed as a tool for studying locomotor and sensory abilities and its use includes the identification of functional alterations, structural adaptations as well as neuro-rehabilitation mechanisms. From that standpoint, the effectiveness of many therapeutic interventions (i.e. physical exercises) has been documented in rodents and humans. The translation from experimental data to clinical conditions requires the continuous collaboration and feedback between researchers and health clinicians looking for the selection of the best rehabilitation protocols obtained from animal research. Here we will show some locomotor alterations, the traditional methods used to assess motor dysfunction and gait abnormalities in rodent models with stroke. The aim of this review is to show some motor deficiencies and some methods used to establish gait disturbances in rodents with cerebrovascular lesion. The review included the search of defined terms (MeSH) in PychINFO, Medline and Web of Science, between January 2000 and January 2017. Qualitative and narrative reports, dissertations, end course works and conference resumes were discarded. The review focuses on some clinical signs, their effects on rodent locomotor activity, some methodologies used to create lesion and to study motor function, some assessment methods and some translational aspects.

Keywords : functional testing; gait analysis; motor activity; rodents; stroke.

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