Assessment of Motor Balance and Coordination in Mice using the Balance Beam
Abstract
Brain injury, genetic manipulations, and pharmacological treatments can result in alterations of motor skills in mice. Fine motor coordination and balance can be assessed by the beam walking assay. The goal of this test is for the mouse to stay upright and walk across an elevated narrow beam to a safe platform. This test takes place over 3 consecutive days: 2 days of training and 1 day of testing. Performance on the beam is quantified by measuring the time it takes for the mouse to traverse the beam and the number of paw slips that occur in the process. Here we report the protocol used in our laboratory, and representative results from a cohort of C57BL/6 mice. This task is particularly useful for detecting subtle deficits in motor skills and balance that may not be detected by other motor tests, such as the Rotarod.
Additional Information
© 2011 JoVE. Amber Southwell set up the apparatus and trained the authors in its use. Funding was provided by a grant from the NINDS to Paul Patterson. Experiments on animals were performed in accordance with the guidelines and regulations set forth by the Caltech Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC3197288
- Eprint ID
- 63267
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20151230-135740133
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
- Created
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2016-02-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field