Post-lesion practice and amphetamine-facilitated recovery of beam-walking in the rat.

Treatment with amphetamine increases the rate of recovery of beam-walking in rats when administered after a unilateral suction-ablation lesion of the sensorimotor cortex. It is thought that amphetamine treatment must be combined with postlesion practice on the beam since confinement to prevent locomotion blocks amphetamine-facilitated recovery. However, rats which are confined are also isolated and not handled. In the present experiment, beam-walking recovery was compared among groups of rats which were treated with either amphetamine or saline and then either handled and allowed to walk in a home cage or given practice on the beam. Although amphetamine treatment and postlesion practice had independent beneficial effects on recovery, the group of rats given both treatments had the greatest improvement in beam-walking scores.