The rats were housed and treated according to the rules and regulations of NIH and Institutional Guidelines on the Care and Use of Animals. These studies were approved by the Institutional

Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of Cincinnati, where they were conducted. To analyse the effects of dendritic spine preservation on dopamine grafting efficacy, parkinsonian rats were SRT1720 in vivo placed into one of four groups of differential MSN spine density: (i) sham-grafted rats with vehicle pellets (severe spine atrophy, n = 6); (ii) sham-grafted rats with nimodipine pellets (normal spine density, n = 6); (iii) dopamine-grafted rats with vehicle pellets (severe spine atrophy, n = 8); and (iv) dopamine-grafted rats with nimodipine selleck kinase inhibitor pellets (normal spine density, n = 6). An additional set of six–eight rats was run per group and stained with a Golgi technique to confirm treatment effect on spine density. The groups and timeline of surgeries and treatments are shown in Fig. 1. Rats were anesthetized with a chloropent solution (3 mL/kg;

chloral hydrate, 42.5 mg/mL; sodium pentobarbital, 8.9 mg/mL) and secured in a stereotaxic apparatus. Two microliters of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA; 6 μg free base/3 μL 0.02% ascorbate made in sterile saline) was injected at a flow rate of 0.5 μL/min using a Hamilton 26-gage needle to two sites unilaterally (to the medial forebrain bundle: A/P = 3.6 mm, M/L = 2.0 mm from bregma, D/V = 8.3 mm from skull; and substantia nigra: A/P = 4.8 mm, M/L = 1.7 mm from

bregma, D/V = 8.0 mm from skull). In a subset of dopamine-grafted rats, nimodipine treatment was used to prevent dendritic spine loss, as described previously (Day et al., 2006). In these rats, anesthetized with isoflurane (administered at 3.5% with an oxygen flow rate of 1.5 L/min, total exposure time of approximately 5 min), 21-day continuous-release nimodipine pellets (0.8 mg/kg/day; Innovative Research of America, Sarasota, FL, USA) were implanted subcutaneously into the interscapular ID-8 space 24 h following 6-OHDA delivery and replaced throughout the experiment every 20 days. In rats receiving ‘vehicle pellets’ inert control pellets were implanted using identical techniques. Embryonic cells of the ventral mesencephalon were obtained from embryonic day 14 (crown–rump length of 10.5–11.5 mm) Sprague–Dawley rats using micro-dissection techniques, and tissue was prepared as previously described (Maries et al., 2006). Mebrgonic tissue for grafting was obtained from timed-pregnant female Sprogue – Dawley rats killed by decapitation; anesthetics were avoided to prevent potential compromise of the survival of embryonic DA neurons. Embryonic day 14 rat pups were decapitated following a 10-min exposure to cold-induced anesthesia. Cell viability was determined by viewing a trypan blue-stained sample of the cell suspension with a hemocytometer.