Effects of anti-parkinsonian drugs on the motor activity and EEG of cats with subthalamic lesions

Role of activation and sensory stimuli in recovery from lateral hypothalamic damage in the cat.

“…Because such cats could always be aroused by external stimuli, they were judged to be somnolent rather than comatose. Moreover, lesions that produce activational deficits similar to those reported here have been found to be accompanied by electroencephalographic synchronization similar to that seen in normal slow-wave sleep (see, Lindsley et al, 1975;Reeves & Hagamen, 1971;Swett & Hobson, 1968). placed on the chair, quickly jumped to the floor or climbed over the top of the chair onto the seat.…”

“…In a sense, the "motivation" for these behaviors has been abolished. However, noxious stimuli, such as pain, and pharmacological stimulants, such as amphetamine, can activate the sensorimotor mechanisms for feeding, mouse killing, and other behaviors (for related phenomena, see Anand, 1955;Antelman, Rowland, & Fisher, 1976;Berger, Wise, & Stein, 1971;Caggiula, Shaw, Antelman, & Edwards, 1976;Collins, 1954;Ellison & Flynn, 1968;Ellison, Sorenson, & Jacobs, 1970;Grill & Norgren, 1976;Herndon & Neill, 1973;Ingram et al, 1936;Levitt & Teitelbaum, 1975;Lindsley, Ranf, Fernandez, & Wyrwicka, 1975;Ljungberg & Ungerstedt, 1976;Mufson, Balagura, & Riss, 1976;Ranson & Ingram, 1932;Robinson & Whishaw, 1974;Swett & Hobson, 1968).…”

“…As in animals with lateral hypothalamic lesions, the feeding and/or sensorimotor deficits produced by NSB damage and dopamine antagonists can be counteracted by pharmacological stimulants that facilitate dopaminergic neurotransmission as well as by a variety of environmental stressors (Buchman & Richter, 1933;Fog, 1972;Lindsley et al, 1975;Ljungberg & Ungerstedt, 1976;Loizzo, Scotti de Carolis, & Longo, 1971;Marshall et al, 1976;Marshall, Richardson, & Teitelbaum, 1974;Strieker & Zigmond, 1976;Ungerstedt, 1974;Wagner & Woods, 1950). Further support comes from human parkinsonism, which involves degeneration of the nigrostriatal system.…”

Bilateral Improvement in Voluntary Movement after Unilateral Diencephalic Lesions for Parkinsonism

“…In particular, the lesion could exert bilateral effects through connections within the brain stem that link the two sides of the reticular formation and through others linking the basal ganglia and thalamus on one side of the brain with sub cortical structures on the other [5,12,18,23,28,30,32], Patients improved in using the arm ipsilateral to surgery, although there was no obvious improvement in its tremor or rigidity. To benefit voluntary movement in this way the lesion may have relieved central mo tor mechanisms of some retrograde influence, possibly presynaptic or postsynaptic inhibition, or some form of neural occlusion related to the excessive neural transmission underlying tremor or rigidity (the lesion that reduces tremor or rigidity may, at the same time, relieve central mechanisms of excessive neural traffic -and thus improve their ability to control voluntary movement).…”

Akinesia in Parkinsonism. Relation between spontaneous movement (other than tremor) and voluntary movements made on command

“…A factor common to motor fatiguing and the loss of spontaneous movement may well be the decrease in the Parkinsonians' activation of behaviour,'5 16 a change that has been linked with reduction in monoaminergic transmission within the brainstem and basal ganglia. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Despite the fact that akinesia, bradykinesia and hypokinesia are used freely to refer to the poverty of movement in patients with Parkinson's disease, there is no agreement concerning the precise definition of these terms. It would seem useful to have them denote the impairment of separate elements of motor behaviour,24 25 particularly since the change that Parkinson's disease brings to one element (such as the initiation of spontaneous actions) may be poorly related to the change in other elements (such as the velocity of movementrepresented in the present work by the transit time, Th, for the drawing-board test).…”