Ischemic strokes cause devastating brain damage and functional deficits with few treatments available. Previous studies have shown that the ischemia-hypoxia rapidly induces clinically similar thrombosis and neuronal loss, but any resulting behavioral changes are largely unknown. The goal of this study was to evaluate motor and cognitive deficits in adult HI mice. Following a previously established procedure, HI mouse models were induced by first ligating the right common carotid artery and followed by hypoxia. Histological data showed significant long-term neuronal losses and reactive glial cells in the ipsilateral striatum and hippocampus of the HI mice. Whereas the open field test and the rotarod test could not reliably distinguish between the sham and HI mice, in the tapered beam and wire-hanging tests, the HI mice showed short-term and long-term deficits, as evidenced by the increased number of foot faults and decreased hanging time respectively. In cognitive tests, the HI mice swam longer distances and needed more time to find the platform in the Morris water maze test and showed shorter freezing time in fear contextual tests after fear training. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that adult HI mice have motor and cognitive deficits and could be useful models for preclinical stroke research.

缺血性中风几乎没有治疗方法，可导致破坏性脑损伤和功能障碍。先前的研究表明，缺血性缺氧会迅速诱发临床上相似的血栓形成和神经元丢失，但是任何由此引起的行为变化在很大程度上是未知的。这项研究的目的是评估成年HI小鼠的运动和认知缺陷。按照先前建立的程序，首先结扎右颈总动脉，然后进行缺氧，以诱导HI小鼠模型。组织学数据显示，HI小鼠的同侧纹状体和海马中存在大量的长期神经元丢失和反应性胶质细胞。鉴于实地测试和旋转脚架测试无法可靠地区分深浅小鼠和HI小鼠，但在锥形束和导线悬挂测试中，HI小鼠表现出短期和长期的缺陷，分别由足部缺陷数增加和悬挂时间减少所证明。在认知测试中，HI小鼠游走的距离更长，并且需要更多的时间来在Morris水迷宫测试中找到平台，并且在恐惧训练后的恐惧上下文测试中显示出更短的冻结时间。总之，这项研究表明成年HI小鼠具有运动和认知缺陷，并且可能是临床前中风研究的有用模型。