Cylinder Test to Assess Sensory-motor Function in a Mouse Model of Parkinson's Disease

Luiz Alexandre Viana Magno; Mélcar Collodetti; Helia Tenza-Ferrer; Marco Aurélio Romano-Silva

doi:10.21769/BioProtoc.3337

Cylinder Test to Assess Sensory-motor Function in a Mouse Model of Parkinson's Disease

Bio Protoc. 2019 Aug 20;9(16):e3337. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.3337.

Authors

Luiz Alexandre Viana Magno¹, Mélcar Collodetti¹, Helia Tenza-Ferrer¹, Marco Aurélio Romano-Silva^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Centro de Tecnologia em Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, CEP 30130-100, Brazil.
² Departamento de Saúde Mental, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, CEP 30130-100, Brazil.

Abstract

Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative movement disorder that happens due to the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. The deficiency of dopamine in the basal nuclei drives cardinal motor symptoms such as bradykinesia and hypokinesia. The current protocol describes the cylinder test, which is a relatively simple behavioral assessment that evaluates the motor deficits upon unilateral degeneration of the nigrostriatal pathway in experimental models of Parkinson's disease. Since dopamine-depleted mice exhibit the preferential use of the forelimb ipsilateral to the lesion, here researchers perform the cylinder test to investigate the therapeutic effects of antiparkinsonian treatments on the performance of the contralateral (injured) limb.

Keywords: Behavior; Cylinder test; Motor system; Parkinson’s disease; Stroke.