Aripiprazole and environmental enrichment independently improve functional outcome after cortical impact injury in adult male rats, but their combination does not yield additional benefits.

Aripiprazole and environmental enrichment independently improve functional outcome after cortical impact injury in adult male rats, but their combination does not yield additional benefits. Exp Neurol. 2019 Jan 16;: Authors: Besagar S, Radabaugh HL, Bleimeister IH, Meyer EA, Niesman PJ, Cheng JP, Bondi CO, Kline AE Abstract Typical antipsychotic drugs (APDs) with D2antagonistic properties impede functional outcome after experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI) and reduce the effectiveness of environmental enrichment (EE). Here we test the hypothesis that aripiprazole (ARIP), an atypical APD with partial D2and 5-HT1Areceptor agonist activities will improve recovery after TBI and when combined with EE will further enhance the benefits. Anesthetized adult male rats received either a controlled cortical impact of moderate severity or sham injury and then were randomly assigned to EE or standard (STD) housing and once daily intraperitoneal injections of ARIP (0.1 mg/kg) or vehicle (VEH; 1.0 mL/kg) beginning 24 h after injury for 19 days. Motor (beam-walking time and beam-walk score) and cognitive (acquisition of spatial learning and memory) outcomes were assessed on post-operative days 1-5 and 14-19, respectively. Cortical lesion volume was quantified on day 21. There were no statistical differences among the sham groups, regardless of housing or treatment, so the data were pooled. The SHAM group performed better than all TBI gro...
Source: Experimental Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research