Figure 2.

Effects of lesion and l-DOPA on motor performance and the development of dyskinesia for rats in Experiment 1 (n = 8–15 per group). Rats were treated for 14 d with daily l-DOPA 6 mg/kg (“Chronic”) or vehicle (Veh; “Acute”). On each of the next 2 d, microdialysis was performed. Importantly, rats in the “acute” condition only received one injection of l-DOPA (on day 15 and 16 during microdialysis). A, Parkinsonian motor impairment was assessed by analyzing the number of steps taken with the lesioned forepaw before drug treatment (baseline), on days 1 and 10 of treatment, and after treatment had concluded (post). B, Dyskinesia was quantified using the AIMs scale on days 1 and 8 of daily treatments as well as during microdialysis on days 15 and 16. Horizontal bars represent median scores for each group. C, Dyskinesia during microdialysis for lesioned rats given l-DOPA. AIMs data are displayed as medians with median absolute deviation (MAD) as the error term. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001.