From cerebral palsy to developmental coordination disorder: development of preclinical rat models corresponding to recent epidemiological changes

Publication date: Available online 19 November 2019Source: Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation MedicineAuthor(s): Jacques-Olivier Coq, Marine Kochmann, Diego C Lacerda, Hanane Khalki, Maxime Delcour, Ana E Toscano, Florence Cayetanot, Marie-Hélène Canu, Mary F Barbe, Masahiro TsujiAbstractCerebral palsy (CP) is a complex syndrome of various sensory, motor and cognitive deficits. Its prevalence has recently decreased in some developed countries and its symptoms have also shifted since the 1960s. From the 1990s, CP has been associated with prematurity, but recent epidemiologic studies show reduced or absent brain damage, which recapitulates developmental coordination disorder (DCD). In previous studies, we developed a rat model based on mild intrauterine hypoperfusion (MIUH) that recapitulated the diversity of symptoms observed in preterm survivors. Briefly, MIUH led to early inflammatory processes, diffuse brain damage, minor locomotor deficits, musculoskeletal pathologies, neuroanatomical and functional disorganization of the primary somatosensory (S1) cortex but not in the motor cortex (M1), delayed sensorimotor reflexes, spontaneous hyperactivity, deficits in sensory information processing, and memory and learning impairments in adult rats. Adult MIUH rats also exhibited changes in muscle contractile properties and phenotype, enduring hyperreflexia and spasticity, as well as hyperexcitability in the sensorimotor cortex. We recently developed a rat model of DCD based on ...
Source: Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine - Category: Rehabilitation Source Type: research