ABSTRACT
Cerebral infarction causes motor, sensory, and cognitive impairments. Although rehabilitation enhances recovery of activities of daily living after cerebral infarction, its mechanism remains elusive due to the lack of reproducibility and low survival rate of brain ischemic model animals. Here, to investigate the relationship between rehabilitative intervention, motor function, and pathophysiological remodeling of the tissue in the ipsilateral hemisphere after cerebral infarction, we took advantage of a highly reproducible model of cerebral infarction using C.B-17/Icr-+/+Jcl mice. In this model, we confirmed that voluntary running exercise improved functional recovery after ischemia. Exercise did not alter the volume of infarction or survived cortex, or the number of NeuN-labeled cells in the peri-infarct cortex. In mice who did not exercise, the number of basal dendritic spines of layer 5 pyramidal cells decreased in the peri-infarct motor cortex, whereas in mice who exercised it remained at the normal level. The voluntary exercise intervention maintained basal dendritic spine density within the peri-infarct area, which may reflect an adaptive remodeling of the surviving neural circuitry that might contribute to promoting the recovery of activities of daily living.
Subject(s)
Brain Ischemia/therapy , Dendritic Spines/physiology , Recovery of Function/physiology , Animals , Cerebral Infarction/physiopathology , Dendritic Spines/metabolism , Disease Models, Animal , Male , Mice , Mice, Inbred CBA , Motor Cortex/physiopathology , Neuronal Plasticity/physiology , Physical Conditioning, Animal/methods , Pyramidal Cells , Reproducibility of Results , RunningABSTRACT
DNA extraction and purification have been generally considered to be required for PCR assay. We demonstrated a new protocol using biological specimens directly as templates for real-time PCR with melting curve analysis. We confirmed the melting curve analysis was particularly suitable for the identification of the insertion/deletion (Ins/Del) polymorphism of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene. The new protocol we developed can be set up using simple and complete PCR analysis including data interpretation in under four hours with additional advantages of application for large-scale clinical research, diagnostics, and epidemiological studies at low cost.
