Lifelong environmental enrichment in rats: impact on emotional behavior, spatial memory vividness, and cholinergic neurons over the lifespan |
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Authors: | Hayat Harati Alexandra Barbelivien Karine Herbeaux Marc-Antoine Muller Michel Engeln Christian Kelche Jean-Christophe Cassel Monique Majchrzak |
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Affiliation: | 1. Laboratoire d’Imagerie et de Neurosciences Cognitives, UMR 7237 CNRS, Université de Strasbourg, IFR 37 de Neurosciences, GDR 2905 du CNRS, 12 rue Goethe, 67000, Strasbourg, France
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Abstract: | We assessed lifelong environmental enrichment effects on possible age-related modifications in emotional behaviors, spatial memory acquisition, retrieval of recent and remote spatial memory, and cholinergic forebrain systems. At the age of 1 month, Long–Evans female rats were placed in standard or enriched rearing conditions and tested after 3 (young), 12 (middle-aged), or 24 (aged) months. Environmental enrichment decreased the reactivity to stressful situations regardless of age. In the water maze test, it delayed the onset of learning deficits and prevented age-dependent spatial learning and recent memory retrieval alterations. Remote memory retrieval, which was altered independently of age under standard rearing conditions, was rescued by enrichment in young and middle-aged, but unfortunately not aged rats. A protected basal forebrain cholinergic system, which could well be one out of several neuronal manifestations of lifelong environmental enrichment, might have contributed to the behavioral benefits of this enrichment. |
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Keywords: | Acetylcholine Aging Anxiety Basal forebrain Enriched environment Recent and remote memory Striatum |
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