Training of the impaired forelimb after traumatic brain injury enhances hippocampal neurogenesis in the Emx1 null mice lacking a corpus callosum

Automation of training and testing motor and related tasks in pre-clinical behavioural and rehabilitative neuroscience

Testing and training animals in motor and related tasks is a cornerstone of pre-clinical behavioural and rehabilitative neuroscience. Yet manually testing and training animals in these tasks is time consuming and analyses are often subjective. Consequently, there have been many recent advances in automating both the administration and analyses of animal behavioural training and testing. This review is an in-depth appraisal of the history of, and recent developments in, the automation of animal behavioural assays used in neuroscience. We describe the use of common locomotor and non-locomotor tasks used for motor training and testing before and after nervous system injury. This includes a discussion of how these tasks help us to understand the underlying mechanisms of neurological repair and the utility of some tasks for the delivery of rehabilitative training to enhance recovery. We propose two general approaches to automation: automating the physical administration of behavioural tasks (i.e., devices used to facilitate task training, rehabilitative training, and motor testing) and leveraging the use of machine learning in behaviour analysis to generate large volumes of unbiased and comprehensive data. The advantages and disadvantages of automating various motor tasks as well as the limitations of machine learning analyses are examined. In closing, we provide a critical appraisal of the current state of automation in animal behavioural neuroscience and a prospective on some of the advances in machine learning we believe will dramatically enhance the usefulness of these approaches for behavioural neuroscientists.

Comprehensive rehabilitation in a patient with corpus callosum syndrome after traumatic brain injury: Case report

RATIONALE

Corpus callosum syndrome is a rare consequence of traumatic brain injuries. We provide a case of a patient with typical corpus callosum syndrome following a traumatic brain injury, and demonstrate neural reorganization and significant neural regeneration after comprehensive rehabilitation, using diffusion tensor imaging fiber bundle tracking.

PATIENT CONCERNS

We found typical clinical manifestations of damage to the corpus callosum.

DIAGNOSES, INTERVENTIONS, AND OUTCOMES

We diagnosed a Traumatic Brain Injury (diffuse axonal injury and rupture of corpus callosum). The patient underwent a comprehensive multifaceted rehabilitation program including drug therapy, integrated physical therapy, occupational therapy, acupuncture, music therapy, computer-aided cognitive rehabilitation training, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. This rehabilitation program resulted in greatly improved physical and communication ability.

LESSONS

Comprehensive rehabilitation can significantly improve the function of patients with corpus callosum syndrome and may cause neural remodeling, as seen on diffusion tensor imaging.

The structure of arm and hand movements in a spontaneous and food rewarded on-line string-pulling task by the mouse

Arm and hand use by the mouse have been studied in a variety of tasks in order to understand the structure of skilled movements and motor learning, the anatomy and function of neural pathways, and to develop animal models of neurological conditions. The present study describes string-pulling by the mouse, a behavior in which a mouse uses hand-over-hand movements to pull down a string that hangs from the top of a test cage. Mice both spontaneously string-pull and also string-pull to obtain cashew nuts tied to the end of the string as food reward. To string-pull, mice sat upright and tracked the string with their nose and then made hand-over-hand movements to reel in the string. A string-pull movement consists of four arm movements (Advance to make purchase, Pull, Push to draw the string down and Lift to return the hand for the next Advance) and four hand movements (Collect to aim the hand, Overgrasp to position the hand, and Grasp to make purchase, and Release). The kinematic profiles of the string-pull movement are distinctive with each hand making similar movements at a rate of 4 cycles per second and with the Lift and Advance movements occurring at a higher speed than Pull and Push movements. The results are discussed in relation to the antecedent repertoire of mouse behavior that lends itself to string-pulling, with respect to the utility of using string-pulling to investigate motor systems and adapting string-pulling to model neurological conditions in mice.