Hamm R J, Pike B R, O'Dell D M, Lyeth B G, Jenkins L W
Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia, Richmond.
J Neurotrauma. 1994 Apr;11(2):187-96. doi: 10.1089/neu.1994.11.187.
The purpose of the present experiment was to examine the effectiveness of a modified rotarod test in detecting motor deficits following mild and moderate central fluid percussion brain injury. In addition, this investigation compared the performance of the rotarod task with two other commonly used measures of motor function after brain injury (beam-balance and beam-walking latencies). Rats were either injured with a mild (n = 14) or moderate (n = 8) level of fluid percussion injury or were surgically prepared but not injured (n = 8). All rats were assessed on all tasks for 5 days following their respective treatments. Results revealed that both the mild and moderate injury levels produced significant deficits in the ability of the animals to perform the rotarod task. Performance on the beam-balance and beam-walking tasks were not significantly impaired at the mild injury level. It was only at the moderate injury level that the beam-balance and beam-walking tasks detected deficits in motor performance. This result demonstrated that the rotarod task was a sensitive index of injury-induced motor dysfunction following even mild fluid percussion injury. A power analysis of the three tasks indicated that statistically significant group differences could be obtained with the rotarod task with much smaller sample sizes than with the beam-balance and beam-walking tasks. Performance on the rotarod, beam-walk, and beam-balance tasks were compared and evaluated by a multivariate stepdown analysis (multiple analysis of variance followed by univariate analyses of covariance). This analysis indicated that the rotarod task measures aspects of motor impairment that are not assessed by either the beam-balance or beam-walking latency. These findings suggest that compared to the beam-balance and beam-walking tasks, the rotarod task is a more sensitive and efficient index for assessing motor impairment produced by brain injury.
本实验的目的是检验改良的转棒试验在检测轻度和中度中枢性液体冲击脑损伤后运动功能障碍方面的有效性。此外，本研究将转棒试验的表现与脑损伤后另外两种常用的运动功能测量方法（平衡木行走和平衡木行走潜伏期）进行了比较。大鼠分别接受轻度（n = 14）或中度（n = 8）液体冲击损伤，或进行手术准备但未受伤（n = 8）。所有大鼠在各自接受治疗后的5天内对所有任务进行评估。结果显示，轻度和中度损伤水平均使动物执行转棒试验的能力出现显著缺陷。在轻度损伤水平下，平衡木行走和平衡木行走任务的表现未受到显著损害。只有在中度损伤水平时，平衡木行走和平衡木行走任务才检测到运动表现的缺陷。这一结果表明，即使是轻度液体冲击损伤后，转棒试验也是损伤诱导的运动功能障碍的敏感指标。对这三项任务的功效分析表明，与平衡木行走和平衡木行走任务相比，使用转棒试验以小得多的样本量就能获得具有统计学意义的组间差异。通过多变量逐步分析（多因素方差分析后进行单因素协方差分析）对转棒试验、平衡木行走和平衡木行走任务的表现进行了比较和评估。该分析表明，转棒试验测量的运动损伤方面是平衡木行走或平衡木行走潜伏期所未评估的。这些发现表明，与平衡木行走和平衡木行走任务相比，转棒试验是评估脑损伤所致运动损伤更为敏感和有效的指标。
