Figure 1From: Forced arm use is superior to voluntary training for motor recovery and brain plasticity after cortical ischemia in rats Experimental design. 42 Wistar rats were randomly treated with either FAU (group 1; 1-sleeve plaster cast onto unaffected limb at 8/10Â days), VE (group 2; connection of a freely accessible running wheel to cage), or a cage control condition (group 3) for 10 days starting at 48 hours after photothrombotic stroke of sensorimotor cortex (day 3 to 13). Functional outcome was measured using two sensorimotor tests focused on motor control of the front paw (adhesive tape removal and cylinder tests) at baseline before ischemia (day 0), 2 days after ischemia (day 2), after the training period of 10 days (day 13), and at 3 (day 19) and 4 weeks (day 26) after ischemia by an investigator blinded to the experimental groups. Animals were sacrificed at 4 weeks after induction of stroke. For gene expression changes samples were taken from the ipsi- and contralateral cortex and the hippocampus, and hybridized to Affymetrix DNA arrays.Back to article page