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Excerpt
Of particular interest biologically is the question: what is the mechanism of graft action? Can a striatal graft actually ‘repair’ the damage, restoring a functional, information-processing circuitry in the damaged brain, or is the action of the implanted cells simply facilitative of recovery, as could be provide by non-specific, pharmacological or trophic modes of action?
Experiments are described which address question (i) by using disconnection lesions to probe the necessary and sufficient circuitry in grafted animals to sustain performance on an operant version of the classical prefrontal task, delayed alternation, and to address question (ii) by (a) exploring the patterns of recovery in grafted animals in an operant lateralised choice reaction time task, and (b) demonstrating restitution of cellular plasticity at the level of long term potentiation and depression at reformed cortico-striatal synapses in the grafts.
These results demonstrate that striatal grafts have the capacity not only to integrate into the cortical-subcortical circuitry of the adult brain and restore functional cortical outputs, but also to exhibit physiological plasticity of a type necessary to act as a substrate for motor learning.
