Motor System
The effects of estrogen on striatal activity can also be seen in spontaneous behaviors:
- you can train female rats to walk across a narrow beam suspended about 3 feet above the floor; task that reflects sensorimotor coordination
- you can analyze how well the female does on this task by examining the accuracy of foot placement on the beam--if the foot was placed on top of the narrow beam--”correct”, if the foot slipped off the top or grabbed onto the side--”footfault”
- Does performance on this task change over the estrus cycle?
- YES--the number of footfaults decrease during estrus; the female rat performs better on task when estrogen levels are high
- you can reproduce this effect by administering estrogen directly into the striatum