Open Collections

An animal model of Huntington’s disease : behavioral, pharmacological and morphological changes following intrastriatal injections of kainic acid

University of British Columbia

Compared with saline injected controls, rats with bilateral injections of kainic acid (KA) in the dorsal striatum showed temporary aphagia and adipsia, long-lasting body weight decreases, increased locomotor response to d-amphetamine, increased spontaneous nocturnal locomotor activity, increased resistance to extinction, impaired acquisition and retention of avoidance behavior and increased latencies to leave start boxes in various mazes. The KA injections resulted in loss of local neurons in the dorsal striatum, with no appreciable damage either to dopaminergic terminals or to extrinisic myelinated axons, thus supporting both the selective neurotoxic action of KA on neuronal perikarya and the proposed similarity of KA-induced striatal lesions with those found in the caudate-putamen of patients with Huntington's disease (HD). The present results demonstrate that KA striatal lesioned rats also show behavioral and pharmacological similarities with HD patients. In addition, they support the view that HD is characterized by a "subcortical dementia syndrome". A review of HD is also presented.

Text

2010-03-03

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21453

Neuroscience

University of British Columbia

Graduate