User:Wax025/Rotarod test

The website medical.webends.com defines the rotarod performance test as, "A performance test based on forced MOTOR ACTIVITY on a rotating rod, usually by a rodent. Parameters include the riding time (seconds) or endurance. Test is used to evaluate balance and coordination of the subjects, particular in experimental animal models for neurological disorders and drug effects". Basically, the test involves a rodent being placed on a horizontally oriented, rotating cylinder (rod) supended above a cage floor, (not high enough to injury the animal, but high enough to induce avoidance of fall). Rodents naturally try to stay on the rotating cylinder, or rotarod, and avoid falling to the ground. The length of time that a given animal stays on this rotating rod is a measure of their balance, coordination, physical condition, and motor-planning. The speed of the rotarod is motorically driven, and may either be held constant, or accelerated.

A human analog to rotarod test might be "log-rolling" competitions, where an individual must maintain balance on a log floating in the water that rotates with even minimal torques applied by the contestant. Hamster, gerbil, and mouse owners may have observed this principal in action when an animal climbs on the outer top of its wheel, instead of inside of it. The main difference with the rotarod test, is that the rotation of the cylinder in experiments is usually motorically driven.

The advantage of this test is that it creates a discretely measurable, continuous variable (length of time) that can be used for statistical purposes to quantify the effects of differents drugs, conditions, and procedures. This test does not use subjective judgments of ability, and inter-rater reliability will be virtually perfect. Inter-laboratory reliability will only be achieved if the various parameters (size of cylinder, speed of cylinder, composition material of surface, and amount of practice/training given the animal) are also replicated. The experiment is also very replicable from lab to lab (ibid). Moreover, these parameters may be adjusted variously to optimize the stastical separation of different conditions. For instance, alcohol effects on mice become less apparent when the speed is increased.

Because of concern for impairment in human motor behavior fron the use of prescription medications, the rotarod test is frequently used in early stages of drug development to screen-out drugs that might later cause impairment in human driving, etc., that might not be detected epidemiologically in the human population for a very long time. The The test may be useful as a sensitive indicator of trauma induced by brain injury to laboratory rats. Alcohol markedly impairs mouse performance in the rotarod test. Research using the rotarod test with various chemical agonsists and antagonists may help scientists determine which components of neurons mediate the effects of chemicals. Genetic knock-outs and other manipulations, may also determine the genes most responsible for maintaining mammalian balance and coordination. Comparing the performance of different animals with specific brain lesions helps scientists map which structures are critical for maintaining balance.