Impaired motor skills on static and mobile beams in lurcher mutant mice

The cerebellum plays a role in various sensorimotor learning tasks. The purpose of the present studies was to evaluate sensorimotor skills in a spontaneous mouse mutant with cerebellar cortical atrophy. Lurcher mutant mice, characterized by massive losses of cerebellar granule cells and Purkinje cells, were assessed on two static beams varying in width and on an accelerating rotorod. On the static beams, lurcher mutants were deficient in stable positioning while immobile. Contrary to normal mice, they retreated backwards involuntarily and clung off-balance to the side of the beams. However, lurcher mutants were not deficient in segment crossings, body turns, latencies before crossing the first segment, and time spent in motion. There was an improvement over days in static stable positioning on both beams. On the rotorod, although lurcher mutants fell sooner and were inferior to controls in maximal speed of rotation achieved, there was an improvement on both measures across days. Moreover, retention of this motor skill was normal. These results indicate that, although lurcher mutants are limited in their capacity to execute motor coordination tasks, postural sensorimotor learning is not abolished in the absence of cerebellar cortical output neurons.