Ll. Howell et al., Behavioral evaluation of hemiparkinsonian MPTP monkeys following dopamine pharmacological manipulation and adrenal co-graft transplantation, CELL TRANSP, 9(5), 2000, pp. 609-622
Bradykinesia and rigidity are the symptoms that most directly correlate wit
h loss of striatal dopamine in Parkinson's disease. In the hemiparkinsonian
(HP) monkey, this is represented by paucity of movement as measured by com
puterized movement analysis, diminished manual dexterity on clinical examin
ation, and diminished performance on operant behavioral tasks. The present
study used an MPTP-induced HP model in rhesus monkeys to evaluate the effec
tiveness of adrenal medullary and peripheral nerve co-grafts in diminishing
parkinsonian symptoms. Unoperated controls (N = 4), surgical controls with
caudate lesioning (N = 4), and caudate co-grafted (N = 4) HP monkeys demon
strated diminished movement in the home cage following MPTP. This behavior
persisted in unoperated controls: but improved in both surgical control and
co-grafted monkeys. Functional hand dexterity evaluations demonstrated sim
ilar impairment in all three groups, but only surgical controls and co-graf
ted monkeys demonstrated improvement. In general, rotational behavior in re
sponse to apomorphine was consistent with recovery of function in surgical
controls and cografted monkeys, but marked between-subject variability prec
luded group statistical analyses. None of the monkeys could perform the ope
rant task using the affected limb following MPTP. However, the performance
of two co-grafted animals demonstrated pal tial recovery. L-dopa improved o
perant performance, demonstrating a dopaminergic component to the task. The
results demonstrate recovery of behavioral function after surgical treatme
nt, with adrenal co-grafted monkeys showing the greatest degree of improvem
ent.