The protocol of post-ischemic evaluation (at intervals of 3 days) was designed to minimize practice effect, avoiding the “forgetfulness” of trained performance and the interference of food restriction/loss of weight. The results showed that BMMCs were not able to promote significant increase of recovery

since treated and untreated groups had equal level of recovery, which was partial and GSK126 order reached about half of the pre-ischemic performance. Previous reports have shown complete recovery of success rate in reach-to-grasp testing after focal ischemic lesion in motor cortex, without any treatment (Alaverdashvili and Whishaw, 2008). This discrepancy with the results of the control group of the present study could be explained by the lower extension of cortical lesion and the higher frequency of post-ischemic evaluation (daily) applied in those studies, which should increase the cortical substrate for plastic rewiring and the practice effect, respectively. Rodent forelimb reach-to-grasp movement has been demonstrated as a skilled motor pattern controlled by different brain regions.

Frame-by-frame video analyses have shown Transferase inhibitor that different lesions result in impairment of different steps along whole reach-to-grasp movement. Subcortical lesion, including mainly basal ganglia, abolishes digits flexion and closing used by contralesional forelimb for grasping (Gharbawie et al., 2006). Moreover, lesions of red nucleus or rubrospinal tract resulted in loss of arpeggio and hand

rotation movement (Jarratt and Hyland, 1999 and Morris et al., 2011). Focal lesion of sensorimotor cortex impairs the rotatory forelimb movements and the fine control of individual digit movement (Alaverdashvili and Whishaw, 2008). Thus, as observed in primates, corticospinal tract seems to be mainly responsible to promote the most sophisticated forelimb motor pattern (Alaverdashvili and Whishaw, 2008). However, post-ischemic recovery of reach-to-grasp movement is related to the acquisition of a RVX-208 compensatory motor pattern, rather than recovery of the original motor pattern (Alaverdashvili and Whishaw, 2010). Thus, loss of digits independency and forelimb rotation can be offset by less complex digits movements and body rotation, respectively, to get success in the reach-to-grasp endpoint. The lesion-induced cortical plastic rewiring that occurs at peri-ischemic cortex and other distant regions has been proposed to underlie the construction of a new motor engram, resulting in a new motor pattern of reach-to-grasping movement (Alaverdashvili and Whishaw, 2010 and Monfils et al., 2005). Since BMMCs were unable to promote any change in the success rate, it is unlike that treated and untreated groups had some difference in their compensatory motor patterns.