Catwalk xt 9

The rats were food-deprived 16 to 20 hours before each training (taking place during 5 to 7 days) that involved running along a 1.5-m-long CatWalk XT 9.1 (Noldus Information Technology, The Netherlands) reach a small piece of pellet at the end of the CatWalk. After the training period, a pre-UVB session, consisting of five runs per animal, was performed in the control condition and during PAG/DRN stimulation. A 40 cm by 10 cm area along the CatWalk was video-recorded from underneath, the paws in contact with the glass plate causing dispersion of light, making the paw prints easily detectable and quantifiable in the video recording. Two days following UVB irradiation, the procedure was repeated with the same experimental settings during the control condition and PAG/DRN stimulation. Mean paw print intensity was calculated for each run through the Noldus data acquisition system and exported in an Excel file for further analysis. Paw prints were classified automatically by the CatWalk software and were validated visually.

The gaits of hemizygous nestin-cre-MFN2^T106M mutant and control nestin-cre mice were measured using the Noldus Catwalk system. A minimum of three compliant runs (< 6 seconds in duration) were acquired and then classified using Noldus Catwalk XT 9.1 software. From the statistics generated, we chose to compare measurements of forward, intermediate toe spread and print length with n = 9 per strain.

For the gait test, CatWalk XT 9.1 (Noldus Information Technology, Wageningen, Netherlands), an automated quantitative gait analysis system, was performed in this study (Orgah et al., 2019 (link)). Prior to surgery, rats were trained for at least three consecutive days to adapt to the walkway in a quiet room. On the 8th day after the MCAO or sham-operation, post-surgery testing was executed in the same conditions as the training period. Each experimental animal was placed individually on the runway and allowed to freely run back and forth until three accepted runs were recorded. The subsequent data analysis was handled using the CatWalk XT 9.1 Software. The main gait parameters, including walking speed (the speed of rats across the runway), base of support (distance between girdle paw pairs), stride length (distance the paw traveled from one step to the next), and stand (time duration of the paw in contact with the floor during a step cycle), were employed for assessing the effects of QSYQ on functional recovery. At least two observers who were blinded to the animal grouping carried out the CatWalk test and data analysis.