Each year, 15 million people worldwide suffer from strokes. Consequently, researchers face increasing pressure to develop reliable behavioural tests for assessing functional recovery after a stroke. Our aim was to establish a new motor performance index that can be used to evaluate post-stroke recovery in both young and aged animals. Furthermore, we validate the proposed procedure and recommend the necessary number of animals for experimental stroke studies. Young (n = 20) and aged (n = 27) Sprague–Dawley rats were randomly assigned to receive either sham or stroke surgery. The newly proposed performance index was calculated for the post-stroke acute, subacute and chronic phases. The advantage of using our test over current tests lies in the fact that the newly proposed motor index test evaluates not only the performance of the unaffected side in comparison to the affected one but also assesses overall performance by taking into account speed and coordination. Moreover, it reduces the number of animals needed to achieve a statistical power of 80%. This aspect is particularly crucial when studying aged rodents. Our approach can be used to monitor and assess the effectiveness of stroke therapies in experimental models using aged animals.

全世界每年有 1500 万人患有中风。因此，研究人员面临着越来越大的压力，需要开发可靠的行为测试来评估中风后的功能恢复。我们的目标是建立一种新的运动表现指数，可用于评估年轻和老年动物的中风后恢复情况。此外，我们验证了所提出的程序，并推荐了实验性中风研究所需的动物数量。年轻（n = 20）和老年（n = 27）Sprague-Dawley 大鼠被随机分配接受假手术或中风手术。新提出的表现指数是针对中风后急性期、亚急性期和慢性期进行计算的。与当前测试相比，使用我们的测试的优点在于，新提出的运动指数测试不仅评估未受影响一侧与受影响一侧的性能比较，而且还通过考虑速度和协调性来评估整体性能。此外，它还减少了达到 80% 统计功效所需的动物数量。在研究老年啮齿动物时，这一点尤其重要。我们的方法可用于监测和评估老年动物实验模型中中风治疗的有效性。