Complete and Partial Lesions of the Pyramidal Tract in the Rat Affect Qualitative Measures of Skilled Movements: Impairment in Fixations as a Model for Clumsy Behavior
Little is known about prenatal and perinatal brain injury resulting in subsequent clumsy behavior in children. One candidate motor system is the pyramidal tract. The tract traverses the entire central nervous system and, through direct and indirect connections to the brainstem and spinal cord sensor...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2003-01-01
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| Series: | Neural Plasticity |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/NP.2003.77 |
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| Summary: | Little is known about prenatal and perinatal
brain injury resulting in subsequent clumsy
behavior in children. One candidate motor system
is the pyramidal tract. The tract traverses the
entire central nervous system and, through direct
and indirect connections to the brainstem and
spinal cord sensory and motor nuclei, is involved
in the learning and execution of skilled movements.
Here, rats, either naive or pretrained on a
number of motor tasks, were assessed for acute
and chronic impairments following complete or
incomplete pyramidal tract lesions. Postsurgery
rats with complete lesions were impaired on the
qualitative measures of limb aiming, supination,
and posture. Impaired movements require
fixations, complementary movements in different
body segments. The impairment in fixations was
manifest acutely and underwent no improvement
with subsequent training/testing. The finding that
complete and partial pyramidal tract lesions
produce chronic impairment in fixations provides
insight for understanding clumsy behavior in
humans and its potential remediation via specific
training in making fixations. |
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| ISSN: | 2090-5904 1687-5443 |