Skilled reaching impairments follow intrastriatal hemorrhagic stroke in rats

The infusion of autologous blood into the brain of rats is a widely used model of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Careful assessment of functional recovery is an essential part of preclinical testing (e.g., putative cytoprotectants). However, few tests detect long-term deficits in this model. In this study, we used the staircase and single pellet tests to characterize skilled reaching ability after striatal ICH. Rats were trained to reach for food pellets in these tasks before ICH, which was created by infusing 100 μL of autologous blood into the striatum. We assessed reaching success in both tasks for 5 days starting 7 and 28 days after ICH. We counted the number of reaching attempts made with each forelimb in the staircase task and performed kinematic analysis of reaching in the single pellet task. The contralateral (to lesion) forelimb reaching success was significantly impaired in the staircase task 1 week after ICH, but this recovered to pre-surgical levels thereafter. Reaching deficits in the single pellet task were more severe and persistent. Detailed analysis of reaches on day 11 revealed several abnormalities in the following movement components: pronation, grasping, supinating the paw and releasing the pellet. At 1 month, only digit opening and supination were impaired. Accordingly, the single pellet task is better at detecting long-term skilled reaching impairments in the whole blood model of ICH. Thus, the single pellet task seems suited to cytoprotection and rehabilitation studies.