University of Lethbridge

The skilled reaching scale divides the movement by a forelimb in a reach for food act into composite elements each of which are evaluated with a three-point scale. The rating scale is described for a normal rat and can be applied toward evaluating neurological motor disorders.

The rotorod test is used to assess motor status in the walking movement of hemi-Parkinson analogue rats.

In a piloting scent tracking task, the ability of the rats to return to a refuge with food using visual an odor trail or using dead reckoning in infrared light, the integrated record of previous movements, demonstrates that the hippocampus is necessary for dead reckoning.

The ladder rung walking task is a new test to assess skilled walking and measure both forelimb and hindlimb placing, stepping, and inter-limb co-ordination.

Extracellular recordings of neuronal activity using silicon probes in the anesthetized rat will be described. This technique allows information to be obtained across multiple brain areas from more than 100 neurons simultaneously. It provides information with single cell resolution about neuronal ensembles dynamics in multiple local circuits.

Play fighting in the rat involves attack and defense of the nape of the neck, which if contacted, is gently nuzzled with the snout. Because the movements of one animal are countered by the actions of its partner, play fighting is a complex, dynamic interaction. This dynamic complexity raises methodological problems about what to score for experimental studies. We present a scoring schema that is sensitive to the correlated nature of the actions performed. Two experiments illustrate how these measurements can be used to detect the effect of brain damage on play fighting even when there is no effect on overall playfulness. That is, the schema presented here is designed to detect and evaluate changes in the content of play following an experimental treatment.

This paper describes the procedures for tactile stimulation of rat pups and subsequent Golgi-Cox staining of neuronal morphology. Tactile stimulation is a positive experience that is administered in the perinatal period by stroking pups with a household duster. Golgi-cox staining is a reliable procedure permitting the visualization of entire neurons.

Inchworming is a highly repetitive synchronous digging motion displayed by BTBR T⁺ Itpr^3tf/J (BTBR) mice when placed in a testing cage with sufficient sawdust bedding. The procedure is a modification of the juvenile social interaction protocol and is used here to assess repetitive motor stereotypies relevant to Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The modified weight-drop technique is an easy, cost-effective procedure used for the induction of mild traumatic brain injury in juvenile rats. This novel technique produces clinically relevant symptomology that will advance the study of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and concussion.

The goal of the protocol presented here is to describe procedures to expose rats to moderate levels of alcohol during prenatal brain development and to quantify resulting alterations in social behavior during adulthood.

This protocol presents a method for creating a large unilateral craniotomy over the temporal and parietal regions of the mouse cerebral cortex. This is especially useful for real time imaging over an expansive area of a cortical hemisphere.

This protocol describes how to use frame-by-frame video analysis to quantify idiosyncratic reach-to-grasp movements in humans. A comparative analysis of reaching in sighted versus unsighted healthy adults is used to demonstrate the technique, but the method can also be applied to the study of developmental and clinical populations.

Toeprinting aims to measure the ability of in vitro transcribed RNA to form translation initiation complexes with ribosomes under a variety of conditions. This protocol describes a method for toeprinting mammalian RNA and can be used to study both cap-dependent and IRES-driven translation.

Here, we present how Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) can be utilized to obtain information on low-resolution envelopes representing the macromolecular structures. When used in conjunction with high-resolution structural techniques such as X-Ray Crystallography and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, SAXS can provide detailed insights into multidomain proteins and macromolecular complexes in-solution.

This protocol demonstrates how to use an electrophysiological system for closed-loop stimulation triggered by neuronal activity patterns. Sample Matlab code that can be easily modified for different stimulation devices is also provided.