Study for regeneration of function in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy using animal model of slowly progressive brain damage in rats

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We recently reported that rehabilitative training tasks during adolescence improve spatial learning impairment following neonatal hypoxic-ischemic (HI) injury in rats without histological improvement. In the present study we focused on sex differences. Wister rat pups were exposed to a unilateral hypoxic-ischemic insult at 7 days of age. Six weeks after hypoxia-ischemia, rehabilitative training tasks were started. The tasks consisted of the plus maze, the eight-arm radial maze, and the choice reaction time task. Sixteen weeks after the HI insult, the water maze task was performed to evaluate spatial learning ability. Afterwards, we morphologically examined brain injury. Our rehabilitative training significantly improved swimming time and length in females but not in males. Likewise, the training ameliorated infarct areas in the injured cerebral hemisphere in females but not in males. These results suggest that it may be important to develop and evaluate cognitive rehabilitation programs for children with brain injury on the basis of gender.