Alvarez-Cervera Fernando J, Villanueva-Toledo Jairo, Moo-Puc Rosa E, Heredia-López Francisco J, Alvarez-Cervera Margarita, Pineda Juan C, Góngora-Alfaro José L
Departamento de Neurociencias, Centro de Investigaciones Regionales Dr. Hideyo Noguchi, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 97000 Mérida, Yucatán, México.
J Neurosci Methods. 2005 Jul 15;146(1):76-83. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2005.01.018. Epub 2005 Mar 17.
Catalepsy tests performed in rodents treated with drugs that interfere with dopaminergic transmission have been widely used for the screening of drugs with therapeutic potential in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. The basic method for measuring catalepsy intensity is the "standard" bar test. We present here an easy to use microcontroller-based automatic system for recording bar test experiments. The design is simple, compact, and has a low cost. Recording intervals and total experimental time can be programmed within a wide range of values. The resulting catalepsy times are stored, and up to five simultaneous experiments can be recorded. A standard personal computer interface is included. The automated system also permits the elimination of human error associated with factors such as fatigue, distraction, and data transcription, occurring during manual recording. Furthermore, a uniform criterion for timing the cataleptic condition can be achieved. Correlation values between the results obtained with the automated system and those reported by two independent observers ranged between 0.88 and 0.99 (P<0.0001; three treatments, nine animals, 144 catalepsy time measurements).
在接受干扰多巴胺能传递药物治疗的啮齿动物身上进行的僵住症测试，已被广泛用于筛选具有治疗帕金森病潜力的药物。测量僵住症强度的基本方法是“标准”杆测试。我们在此介绍一种基于微控制器的易于使用的自动系统，用于记录杆测试实验。该设计简单、紧凑且成本低。记录间隔和总实验时间可以在很宽的值范围内进行编程。所得到的僵住症时间会被存储，并且可以同时记录多达五个实验。该系统包含一个标准的个人计算机接口。该自动化系统还可以消除手动记录过程中因疲劳、分心和数据转录等因素产生的人为误差。此外，对于僵住症状态的计时可以实现统一标准。自动系统获得的结果与两名独立观察者报告的结果之间的相关值在0.88至0.99之间（P<0.0001；三种处理，九只动物，144次僵住症时间测量）。
