Assessment of Cognitive and Sensorimotor Defi cits - Animal Models of Acute Neurological Injuries: Injury and Mechanistic Assessments - page 225

coordination (and unilateral defi cits), general activity levels, anxiety
and depression-like behaviors, basic associative learning, relational
learning, short-term memory, long-term memory, and problem-
solving strategy are among the domains that can be assessed with
the data collected.
The following sections describe the test battery currently used
by the Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory at Loma Linda
University to assess defi cits in a wide variety of rodent neurodegen-
eration models (Table 1 ). Note that we generally use the full battery
only for the initial characterization of a new model. Depending on
the model being tested, certain aspects of the assessments may be
more or less relevant. For example, testing for lateralized sensory/
motor defi cits makes more sense following unilateral injuries (e.g.,
traumatic brain injury, focal cerebral ischemia) than following
global ischemia. Similarly, testing for spatial memory defi cits makes
more sense for models in which the hippocampus is affected than
for models of motor cortex injury. After initial characterization

Table 1
Overview of comprehensive rodent test battery

Day Test(s) Assessment of…

1 Eye blink, righting ability, beam balance,

footfall, inclined plane, wire hang, adhesive
tape removal, cylinder test (for unilateral
models only)

General neurological functioning and
sensorimotor coordination, forelimb/hind
limb strength

2 Activity General activity levels, anxiety, and tendency

to habituate

3 Accelerating rotarod Sensorimotor coordination and motor

learning

4 Zero maze Anxiety-like behaviors

5 Forced swim (rats)/tail suspension (mice) Learned helplessness/depression-like

behaviors

6 Cued water maze Associative learning, visual and/or other

sensorimotor defi cits, motivation to escape
aversive stimuli, swimming ability

7 Spatial water maze—location 1 acquisition Spatial learning, reversal learning, short-term

(working) and long-term (24 h) spatial
memory, learning strategy, swim speed, and
left/right turn bias

8 Spatial water maze—location 1 probe,

location 2 acquisition

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9 Spatial water maze—location 2 probe,

location 3 acquisition

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10 Spatial water maze—location 3 probe “ ”