Characteristics of postural control disturbances in rats with or without brain lesion

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This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of the postural control in rats with or without lesion of sensorimotor cortex (SMC). For this purpose, we developed a novel posturography technique to measure changes of center of pressure (COP) of small animals including rats during inclination of a floor surface at different angle velocities and in antero-posterior and left-right directions. In some animals, fore- and hind-limb extensor EMGs were measured simultaneously together with COP changes during floor inclination. Rats exhibited dynamic COP changes and phasic EMG activities along with increase of floor inclination. However, rats with lesion of SMC showed different patterns of postural change and uncoordinated EMG activities. This indicated that rats exhibited dynamic postural adjustments in response to postural perturbation and also indicated that this postural adjustment was impaired by lesion of SMC.