CR and motor function

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

For the below, it may be summarized by:

" rats on DR display deficits in skilled movements and are hyperactive "

Do we experience this effect of CR?

See the not pdf-available below.

LK, Metz GA.

Dietary restriction alters fine motor function in rats.

Physiol Behav. 2005 Jul 18; [Epub ahead of print]

PMID: 16045945

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search & DB=pubmed

A number of standard behavioral tasks in animal research utilize food rewards

for

positive reinforcement. In order to enhance the motivation to participate in

these

tasks, animals are usually placed on a restricted diet. While dietary

restriction

(DR) has been shown to have beneficial effects on recovery after brain injury,

life

span and aging processes, it might also represent a stressor. Since stress can

influence a broad range of behaviors, the purpose of this study was to assess

whether DR may have similar effects on skilled movement. Adult male Long-

rats

were trained and tested in a skilled reaching task both prior to and during a

mild

food restriction regimen that maintained their body weights at 90-95% of

baseline

weight for eight days. The observations revealed that DR decreased reaching

success

and increased the number of attempts to grasp a single food pellet. The animals

appeared to be more frantic when attempting to reach for food pellets, and the

time

taken to reach for 20 pellets decreased following the onset of DR. A second

experiment investigating behaviors that do not require food rewards, including a

ladder rung walking task and an open field test, confirmed that rats on DR

display

deficits in skilled movements and are hyperactive. These findings suggest that

results obtained in motor tasks using food rewards need to be interpreted with

caution. ...

Al Pater, PhD; email: old542000@...

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