Effects of enriched environments with different durations and starting times on learning capacity during aging in rats assessed by a refined procedure of the Hebb‐Williams maze task

Kobayashi, Satoru; Ohashi, Yasushi; Ando, Susumu

doi:10.1002/jnr.10442

Cited by 129 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(44 reference statements)

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“…For instance, it decreases freezing responses to a fear-conditioned context (Barbelivien et al 2006;Benaroya-Milshtein et al 2004) and reduces anxiety-like behavior (e.g., Galani et al 2007), an observation recently confirmed in aged rats (Leal-Galicia et al 2008). The impact of environmental enrichment on aging-related impairments might depend on the exposure duration, longer enrichment leading to attenuation or even complete prevention of the age-related cognitive decline (Bennett et al 2006;Kobayashi et al 2002) but also on the age of enrichment onset Freret et al 2011). We recently found that environmental enrichment during the whole post-weaning life limited the age-related alterations of Morris water maze learning capabilities in rats; it also ameliorated memory persistence for at least 24 h after the end of training (Harati et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Lifelong environmental enrichment in rats: impact on emotional behavior, spatial memory vividness, and cholinergic neurons over the lifespan

Harati

Barbelivien

Herbeaux

et al. 2012

AGE

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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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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Lifelong environmental enrichment in rats: impact on emotional behavior, spatial memory vividness, and cholinergic neurons over the lifespan

Harati

Barbelivien

Herbeaux

et al. 2012

AGE

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“…For example, food availability could be made variable in both space and time [101]. Enrichment protocols and early stress paradigms could be applied [102,103].…”

Section: Is Innovation Selected Upon Directly or Is Itmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation

Griffin¹

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 15 to a theme issue 'Innovation in animals and humans: understanding the origins and development of novel and creative behaviour'. Innovation and creativity are key defining features of human societies. As we face the global challenges of the twenty-first century, they are also facets upon which we must become increasingly reliant. But what makes Homo sapiens so innovative and where does our high innovation propensity come from? Comparative research on innovativeness in non-human animals allows us to peer back through evolutionary time and investigate the ecological factors that drove the evolution of innovativeness, whereas experimental research identifies and manipulates underpinning creative processes. In commenting on the present theme issue, I highlight the controversies that have typified this research field and show how a paradigmatic shift in our thinking about innovativeness will contribute to resolving these tensions. In the past decade, innovativeness has been considered by many as a trait, a direct product of cognition, and a direct target of selection. The evidence I review here suggests that innovativeness will be hereon viewed as one component, or even an emergent property of a larger array of traits, which have evolved to deal with environmental variation. I illustrate how research should capitalize on taxonomic diversity to unravel the full range of psychological processes that underpin innovativeness in non-human animals.

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“…In addition to modifying hippocampal morphology, complex housing also enhances performance on a number of hippocampal-dependent learning tasks. The most welldocumented augmentation of learning after complex housing is in spatial tasks such as the Morris water maze and Hebb-Williams maze (Pham et al 1999;Kobayashi et al 2002). However, there is also evidence that environmental enrichment enhances Pavlovian fear conditioning in mice (Rampon et al 2000;Duffy et al 2001;Tang et al 2001).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancement of auditory fear conditioning after housing in a complex environment is attenuated by prior treatment with amphetamine

Briand¹

2005

Learn. Mem.

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Prior exposure to drugs of abuse has been shown to occlude the structural plasticity associated with living in a complex environment. Amphetamine treatment may also occlude some cognitive advantages normally associated with living in a complex environment. To test this hypothesis we examined the influence of prior exposure to amphetamine on fear conditioning in rats housed in either a standard or complex environment. Housing in a complex environment facilitated fear learning to an auditory conditioned stimulus (CS), but not to the training context, relative to animals housed singly or in a social group. Prior treatment with amphetamine eliminated this effect. These results indicate that living in a complex environment facilitates conditional freezing to an auditory CS, and that this effect is abolished by pretreatment with amphetamine.Housing in a relatively complex environment ("environmental enrichment") is known to alter the structure of dendrites (i.e., induce structural plasticity) in a variety of brain regions, and to also influence subsequent learning and memory. The first evidence for structural changes in the brain as a result of living in a complex environment was provided by Rosenzweig and colleagues in the 1960s, who reported that animals living in a complex environment showed increased cortical weight compared with animals in standard laboratory cages (Rosenzweig et al. 1962). Since that time, there have been many studies documenting a number of brain changes in rats living in a complex environment, including increases in cerebral volume, dendritic spine density and number, long-term potentiation (LTP), resistance to neural insult, and synaptic connectivity Greenough et al. 1985Greenough et al. , 1986Green and Greenough 1986; Kolb and Gibb 1991). Although these changes have been found in the cerebral cortex and other brain regions, the focus in many of these studies has been on the hippocampus. In addition to modifying hippocampal morphology, complex housing also enhances performance on a number of hippocampal-dependent learning tasks. The most welldocumented augmentation of learning after complex housing is in spatial tasks such as the Morris water maze and Hebb-Williams maze (Pham et al. 1999;Kobayashi et al. 2002). However, there is also evidence that environmental enrichment enhances Pavlovian fear conditioning in mice (Rampon et al. 2000;Duffy et al. 2001;Tang et al. 2001).Although these examples of experience-dependent plasticity are clearly advantageous, this is not true of all forms of experience-dependent plasticity. Repeated treatment with psychostimulant drugs, for example, also leads to an increase in dendritic branching and spine density in a number of brain regions, which is thought to be related to the development of behavioral sensitization (Robinson and Kolb 1997, 1999Robinson et al. 2001; Li et al. 2004). However, treatment with amphetamine or cocaine has also been shown to occlude the ability of subsequent exposure to a complex environment to alter dendritic structure (Kolb et al....

show abstract

Effects of enriched environments with different durations and starting times on learning capacity during aging in rats assessed by a refined procedure of the Hebb‐Williams maze task

Cited by 129 publications

References 36 publications

Lifelong environmental enrichment in rats: impact on emotional behavior, spatial memory vividness, and cholinergic neurons over the lifespan

Lifelong environmental enrichment in rats: impact on emotional behavior, spatial memory vividness, and cholinergic neurons over the lifespan

Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation

Enhancement of auditory fear conditioning after housing in a complex environment is attenuated by prior treatment with amphetamine

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