Objective : No optimum genetic rat Huntington model both neuropathological using an adeno-associated virus (AAV-2) vector vector has been reported to date. We investigated whether direct infection of an AAV2 encoding a fragment of mutant huntingtin (AV2-82Q) into the rat striatum was useful for optimizing the Huntington rat model. Methods : We prepared ten unilateral models by injecting AAV2-82Q into the right striatum, as well as ten bilateral models. In each group, five rats were assigned to either the 2×1012 genome copies (GC)/mL of AAV2-82Q (×1, low dose) or 2×1013 GC/mL of AAV2-82Q (×10, ...