However, our results indicated that the novel environment-induced defecation response, a common method used to evaluate colorectal function, was not a useful test to measure exacerbation of GI dysfunction, most likely because of the reported reduced level of anxiety in A53T mice.
To test this, we used 3-, 5-, and 7-month-old A53T mice to examine anxiety-like behavior, locomotion, and expression of inflammation and astrogliosis markers in the Hipp and mCtx.
A53T (SNCA) and wild type (WT) littermate mice were evaluated for motor function (rotarod and stride length) and anxiety (elevated plus maze and open field) every 2 weeks.