The goal of the Animal Care and Behavioral Assessment Core Laboratory (ACBAC) is to provide animal-related resources to support the Projects of the University of Florida Drug Discovery Group for Alzheimer's disease (UF DDG-AD). Included in this Core proposal are four specific aims. The first is to provide each Research Project with animals rendered cholinergically deficient by fimbrial lesions. These lesions produce animals in which some of the cholinergic deficits seen in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are mimicked, thereby providing a useful model for testing new drugs for potential efficacy in treating AD. Also, these animals provide a model for testing potential neuroprotective effects of new drugs, an effect which might slow the rate of neurodegeneration in AD patients.
The second aim i s to provide memory-related behavioral testing of animals treated with drugs discovered by the UF DDG-AD. Drugs that will be useful in treating AD should improve memory. The behavioral tests to be used by the ACBAC will allow potential memory-enhancing properties of new drugs to be assessed. The third specific aim is to purchase, maintain and provide health assessments of young and aged Fischer 344 x Brown Norway F1 hybrid rats to be used in each of the Projects for neurochemical and behavioral assessments of drug efficacy. Aged animals provide an alternate model of AD in which to test the potential efficacy of drugs. The last aim is to provide a central facility for the purchase and initial care of animals needed by the Projects and other Core Laboratories of the UF DDG-AD. Each of the research Projects in the UF DDG-AD requires the purchase, maintenance and behavioral assessment of animals which will be used for in vivo and in vitro evaluations of discovered drugs for memory-enhancing or cytoprotective properties. The ACBAC will provide a central facility for the timely ordering of needed animals of appropriate ages and strains from common suppliers an will provide for the care and health surveillance of these animals.
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