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. 2000 Jun 15;20(12):4686–4700. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.20-12-04686.2000

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Fig. 4. — Spontaneous behavior. A, Spontaneous limb use was evaluated using the cylinder test (Schallert and Tillerson, 1999) 3 weeks after the 6-OHDA lesion. There was a highly significant ipsilateral side bias present in all groups at this time point, as indicated by only 10–15% of contralateral limb use in this test (F_(1,76) = 0.408,p = 0.52). B, The animals were tested again in the cylinder test 23 weeks after the 6-OHDA lesion. At this time point, there was a general improvement across all groups (effect of time p = 0.001). In the STR group the improvement was more pronounced, but this trend did not reach significance (group effect p = 0.07). However, considering only the animals from the STR group that displayed full compensation in the amphetamine-induced rotation test (8/11 animals,STR-comp), these animals used their contralateral paw to contact the sides of the cylinder at near normal levels (∼45%), and they performed significantly better than the uncompensated animals and the controls (F_(1,39) = 17.5,p < 0.0001). C, Staircase (skilled limb use) test, data from the contralateral paw. The first period of testing (day 1–7) was performed using the standard narrow platform. The groups performed significantly differently from one another (F_(3,39) = 5.4, p = 0.003). The groups improved over the course of the testing (effect of training; F_(6,234) = 46.5,p < 0.0001), but the rate of learning did not differ between the groups (time × group interaction,F_(18,234) = 1.6, p= 0.058). However, the STR group was able to successfully retrieve significantly more pellets than the other three groups on all days (asterisks; simple main effects, p<0.02), whereas the control, SN, and SN+STR groups did not perform differently from one another (simple main effects,p > 0.1 on each individual day). Beginning on day 8 the test was made more difficult by using a wider platform. In this part of the test, the groups differed from each other in their ability to successfully retrieve pellets (F_(3,39) = 3.2, p = 0.035). The STR group again performed significantly better than all the other groups (asterisks, simple main effects,p < 0.05, except on day 8 and day 10, where 0.08 > p > 0.05). The SN group performed significantly worse than the controls and the SN+STR on day 8 and day 12 (†, simple main effects, p < 0.05), whereas the control group and the SN+STR groups did not perform differently at any time point (p > 0.4 on all days).D, Staircase (skilled limb use) test, data from the ipsilateral paw. Performance with the ipsilateral paw was significantly better than that of the contralateral paw for all four groups (p < 0.0001). E,F, Performance of the contralateral (E) and the ipsilateral forelimb (F) in the stepping test. In the pre-lesion testing (gray shaded column) there was no difference between the groups on either side (F_(3,78) = 0.3, p = 0.82). The lesion severely affected the number of steps on the contralateral side in all groups (effect of side;F_(1,78) = 543.9, p< 0.0001), whereas the performance on the ipsilateral side was unaffected. No improvement was observed over time in any of the groups in this test. The legend in the bottom right cornerrefers to the symbols representing each group and applies toC–F. All values are means ± SEM.