Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / A insuficiÃncia renal ocasiona importantes disfunÃÃes gastrintestinais. Entretanto poucos estudos apontam a relaÃÃo entre a insuficiÃncia renal e o funcionamento do trato gastrintestinal. Neste trabalho estudamos o esvaziamento gÃstrico e o trÃnsito gastrintestinal de lÃquido em ratos acordados, Ãs 6, 12 e 24 horas apÃs a remoÃÃo cirÃrgica de um ou ambos os rins. Em todos os protocolos experimentais, o esvaziamento gÃstrico e o trÃnsito gastrintestinal foram determinados segundo a tÃcnica descrita por Reynell & Spray. O esvaziamento gÃstrico e o trÃnsito gastrintestinal foram significativamente reduzidos Ãs 6, 12 e 24 horas apÃs ambos os rins terem sido removidos. A remoÃÃo de um Ãnico rim nÃo teve efeito sobre o esvaziamento gÃstrico e o trÃnsito gastrintestinal. Houve um acentuado aumento no volume sangÃÃneo bem como nos nÃveis plasmÃticos de urÃia e creatinina apÃs a nefrectomia bilateral. Em seguida, avaliamos se este fenÃmeno foi causado pela azotemia. Num determinado grupo de animais observamos que a infusÃo de urÃia e creatinina nÃo teve efeito sobre o esvaziamento gÃstrico e o trÃnsito gastrintestinal nos animais intactos. AlÃm disso, a retraÃÃo de 30% do volume sangÃÃneo efetivo reverteu o retarde no esvaziamento gÃstrico e no trÃnsito gastrintestinal nos animais submetidos a nefrectomia bilateral. Em sÃntese, a nefrectomia bilateral induz a inibiÃÃo da motilidade gastrintestinal que parece ser ocasionada pela hipervolemia e nÃo pela azotemia induzida pela nefrectomia bilateral. / Renal failure leads to important gastrointestinal functional changes. However, there are only few studies focused on the relationship between renal failure and gastrointestinal tract physiology. In this work we studied the gastric emptying (GE) and gastrointestinal (GI) transit of liquid 6, 12 and 24hr after awake rats had one or both kidneys surgically removed. In both experimental protocols, GE and GI transit were measured according to Reynell & Spray procedures. GE and GI transit were significantly reduced 6, 12 and 24hr after both kidney removal. Removal of only one kidney had no effect on GE and GI transit. Blood volume was greatly increased after bilateral kidney removal as well as plasmatic urea and creatinine levels. We also evaluated whether this phenomenon was caused by azotemia. In a separate group of animals, we observed that urea and creatinine infusions had no effect on GE and GI transit in intact animals. In addition, bleeding up to 30% of blood volume reversed GE and GI transit inhibitions in animals submitted to bilateral kidney removal. In summary, bilateral nephrectomy leads to GI motility inhibition, which seems to be due to hypervolemia and not to post nephrectomy azotemia.

The purpose of this thesis was to develop methodology by which treatments for the cognitive impairments in Huntington's disease (HD) could be tested. As such, the thesis focused mainly on evaluating rats with quinolinic acid (QA) lesions of the striatum, as this manipulation mimics some aspects of the neural damage in Huntington's disease, to try to identify cognitive deficits of HD resulting from cell loss in the striatum. In the first part (Chapters 3-5), the role of the striatum in implicit memory was investigated. Chapter 3 compared the performance of rats and humans on a reaction time task that evaluated implicit memory by presenting visual stimuli with differing probabilities which change over time. Although rats made higher percentage of incorrect responses and late errors, both groups showed a similar pattern of reaction times. Chapter 4 investigated whether implicit memory (the computation of probabilities to predict the location of a stimulus) was affected by selective blockade of dopaminergic transmission at the D1 or D2 receptors by SCH-23390 and raclopride, respectively. Reaction times were slower with SCH-23390 and raclopride, but only SCH-23390 reduced errors to the least probable target location. Chapter 5 used the same task to evaluate implicit memory in rats with QA lesions of the dorsomedial striatum (DMS). Implicit memory was not affected by lesions of the DMS, which suggested that once a task that requires implicit memory has been learned, the DMS was not involved in sustaining the performance of the task. The second part of this thesis (Chapter 6), explored the contribution of the DMS in habit formation. DMS lesioned rats did not show habitual responding, and were not impaired in learning a new goal-directed behaviour. The third part (Chapters 7 and 8), investigated the role of the dorsal striatum in reversal learning, attentional set-formation, and set-shifting. Dorsal striatum lesioned rats were not impaired in reversal learning, but had a diminished shift-cost, which suggested that dorsal striatum lesions disrupted the formation of attentional sets. These results showed that although QA lesions of the dorsal striatum mimic some aspects of the neural damage in HD, they did not result in the same cognitive deficits observed in patients with HD, at least using the tasks presented in this thesis. However, other animal models of HD could be evaluated using the different tasks presented in this thesis to continue the search of a reliable animal model of HD in which treatments for the disease could be evaluated.