Comparison of rotation behaviour of Wistar and genetic absence epilepsy rats injected with 6-hydroxydopamine.

Objective: 6-Hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) is a toxic agent for the nigro-striatal dopaminergic neurons and it is used in modeling Parkinson's disease in rats (1). It is aimed to compare in genetic absence epilepsy rats (GAERS) and Wistar rats from Strasbourg, the apomorphine-induced rotation behavior, which is one of the indicators of dopaminergic damage of 6-OHDA toxicity. Methods: In this study, 30 days old Wistar and GAERS animals were divided into two groups. 6-OHDA(8 pg dose and 4 pL/4 minutes) was injected by stereotaxic surgery into the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) (AP: -1.4; ML: 1.6; V: 7.1 mm; single injection) of GAERS-MFB group (n=8), into the striatum (AP:-O.5/+O.5; ML:3.0; V: 5.0 mm; double injections) of GAERS-Striatum group (n=5), as well as into the MFB (AP:-1.4; ML: 1.6; V: 7.1 mm; single injection) of Wistar-MFB group (n=4) and the striatum (AP: -O.5/+O.5; ML: 3.0; V: 5.0 min; double injections) of Wistar-Striatum (n=2) group. After 21 days, all animals were injected with apomorphine (0.05 mg/kg, subcutan). After apomorphine administration, right and left rotation (3600) of the animals were recorded for 30 minutes. Data were expressed as mean+standart error. One-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc test were used (p<0.05 was considered significant). Results: The mean number of GAERS-MFB rotations was 6.56±0.05 per minute, whereas the GAERS-Striatum was 6.19±1.72 per minute. While the number of Wistar-MFB rotations was 4.74+2.33 per minute, the number of Wistar-Striatum rotations was 3.27±1.40 per minute. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups. Conclusion: Although the findings show there is no difference between the groups, it is aimed to continue the study by increasing the number because of the numbers of groups are limited in our study. The study is supported by TÜBİTAK (218S653). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]