Probing the impact of cholinergic circuits in functional recovery after focal cerebral ischemia

Abstract

The current thesis investigated the role of acetylcholine in recovery from diaschisis and skilled hand movement following ischemic stroke in a mouse model of photothrombotic stroke. Mice were trained in skilled reaching task in which they were taught to use their hand to reach for, grasp, and eat a food pellet. They were implanted with a fiber optic in their nucleus basalis, the main source of cholinergic projections to the sensorimotor cortex, for optogenetic stimulation and an electrode in their motor cortex for local field potential recordings. Then they received photothrombotic stroke in their primary forelimb somatosensory cortex. The general findings are that upregulation of acetylcholine reduced diaschisis following photothrombotic stroke to primary forelimb somatosensory area as measured by endpoint scores. However, upregulation of acetylcholine did not improve skilled hand movements as measured by movement component scores and fictive eating analysis.