Treadmill performance of mice with cerebellar lesions: 2. Lurcher mutant mice

The sensorimotor skills of a spontaneous mouse mutant with cerebellar corti cal atrophy, Lurcher, were examined on either a fast or a slow treadmill in clined at one of three slopes, requiring forward movements in order to avoi d footshocks. During the early part of acquisition, Lurcher mutants had low er latencies before falling on either treadmill than normal mice, but not d uring a retention test. For both Lurcher mutants and controls, the amount o f time spent walking as a function of time spent on the belt increased with an increase in belt speed. Lurcher mutants had higher walking time/total t ime ratios on the slow but not on the fast treadmill. It is concluded that cerebellar cortical degeneration impaired the time course of acquisition bu t not long-term retention of the treadmill task. (C) 2000 Academic Press.