FIG. 3.

Postinjury administration of guanabenz improves vestibulomotor, motor and cognitive function. (A) Controlled cortical impact animals were treated starting 30 min postinjury with either 5.0 mg/kg of guanabenz or vehicle (n=6/group), then tested for motor and cognitive abilities. Rats treated with guanabenz had improved (B) vestibulomotor function, as indicated by improved ability to balance on a balance beam, and motor function, as indicated by reduced (C) contra- and (D) ipsilateral foot faults in a paw placement task. (E) Percent time exploring two objects during the familiarization period of the novel object recognition (NOR) task. (F) Rats treated with guanabenz had improved recognition memory, evidenced by increased time exploring the novel object in the NOR task. (G) Guanabenz-treated rats acquired the position of hidden platform in the Morris water maze (MWM) task significantly faster than vehicle-treated injured controls. Spatial memory testing did not reveal any significant differences in the two groups in terms of (H) latency to the hidden platform location or (I) the number of platform crossings. (J) When the platform was moved to a new location to test reversal learning, guanabenz-treated rats learned the new platform location significantly faster than vehicle-treated injured controls. Data are presented as the mean±standard error of the mean. ^‡Significant difference by two-way repeated measures analysis of variance. *p<0.05. Veh, vehicle; Guan, Guanabenz.