Behavioral/environmental intervention improves learning after cerebral hypoxia-ischemia in rats

In premature infants, many of whom experience ischemic brain insults, the environment of rearing influences cognitive outcome. We developed a model to evaluate the effect of rearing conditions on learning after unilateral cerebral hypoxia-ischemia (HI) in 7-day-old (P7) rats. We hypothesized that ne...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Stroke (1970) 2001-09, Vol.32 (9), p.2192-2197
Main Authors: CHOU, I-Ching, TRAKHT, Tatyana, SIGNORI, Carina, SMITH, Julia, FELT, Barbara T, VAZQUEZ, Delia M, BARKS, John D. E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Cerebral Cortex - pathology
Corpus Striatum - pathology
Disease Models, Animal
Exercise Test
Female
Glucocorticoids - blood
Handling (Psychology)
Hippocampus - pathology
Hypoxia-Ischemia, Brain - pathology
Hypoxia-Ischemia, Brain - physiopathology
Hypoxia-Ischemia, Brain - therapy
Male
Maze Learning
Medical sciences
Neurology
Rats
Rats, Long-Evans
Social Environment
Vascular diseases and vascular malformations of the nervous system
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In premature infants, many of whom experience ischemic brain insults, the environment of rearing influences cognitive outcome. We developed a model to evaluate the effect of rearing conditions on learning after unilateral cerebral hypoxia-ischemia (HI) in 7-day-old (P7) rats. We hypothesized that neonatal handling would benefit rats recovering from an episode of HI. Seventeen litters of P7 Long-Evans rats underwent either HI (right carotid ligation followed by 1.5 hours in 8% O(2)) or control procedures. From P8 to P14, randomized litters were either handled (15 minutes of separation from dam per day) or nonhandled. After P55, learning was tested in the Morris water maze. To evaluate injury severity, hippocampal, cortical, and striatal volumes were measured. In water-maze performance, ANCOVA revealed an interaction between handling and severity of hippocampal damage. Among HI rats, handled rats learned faster when hippocampal damage was moderate (P
ISSN:0039-2499
1524-4628
DOI:10.1161/hs0901.095656