Detection of Gait Abnormalities in Sprague-Dawley Rats after 6-hydroxydopamine Injection and the Experiment Efficient Design

This manuscript focuses on distinguishing the locomotion of 6-Hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) rats from untreated control rats and the efficient design of the experiment. A 6-OHDA rat is a model of Parkinson´s disease and the locomotion is determined by measuring ground reaction forces. The hypothesis that changes in measured locomotion parameters can noninvasively detect Parkinson´s disease in rats is tested. A gait analysis system that measures locomotion parameters (LP) of each individual limb along with a logistic regression model is used to assess the locomotion impairments of Sprague-Dawley rats before and after injecting 6-OHDA into their right medial forebrain bundle (MFB). We observed changes in the rats´ locomotion as soon as they walked again through the system after recuperating from the surgery. Before the surgery the locomotion of the rats was normal, whereas after surgery the six rats demonstrated impaired locomotion. The statistical model used 7 LPs that characterize non vertical ground reaction forces and associated time parameters. The sensitivity and specificity of the 7-LP model is 92% and 95%, respectively. This gait analysis system can be used to test the efficacy of new pharmaceutical treatments for Parkinson´s disease and other neurological ailments modeled in rats or mice. A system for noninvasively diagnosing neurological ailments that affect locomotion in humans can be developed using similar methodologies.