Introduction: The cerebellum has been considered a key structure involved in coordinated motor planning, cognition, learning and memory functions. Bearing in mind, we show a permanent model of toxin produced cerebellar lesion characterized in contemporary motor and cognitive abnormalities. Methods: Slow administration of Quinolinic acid (QA, 5μl of 200 μmol, 1μl/minute) in the right cerebellar hemisphere (lobule VI) caused noticeable motor and cognitive disturbance and cellular degeneration in all treated animals. Behavioral and histopathological studies were then assessed during 10 weeks after QA treatment. The data were analyzed using ANOVA and Student’s t-test. Results: The QA treated group showed marked motor learning deficits on the rotating rod test (p ≤ 0.0001), locomotor asymmetry on cylinder test (p ≤ 0.0001), dysmetria on beam balance test (p ≤ 0.0001), abnormality in neuromuscular strength on hang wire test (p ≤ 0.0001), spatial memory deficits on Morris water maze (p ≤ 0.001) and fear conditioned memory on passive avoidance test (p ≤ 0.01) during 10 weeks compared with the controls. Morever, histopathological study showed loss of Purkinje cells (p ≤ 0.001) and granular cell density (p ≤ 0.0001) in lesioned hemisphere of the cerebellum. Conclusions: Results of the present study show that the QA can remove many cells which respond to QA in hemispheric lobule VI and thus provide a potential model to functional and cell based studies.

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