Effects of environmental enrichment on gene expression in the brain

Rampon, Claire; Jiang, Chunmiao; Dong, Helin; Tang, Ya Ping; Lockhart, David J.; Schultz, Peter G.; Tsien, Joseph Zhuo; Hu, Yinghe

doi:10.1073/pnas.97.23.12880

Cited by 554 publications

(392 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Indeed, our array analysis was able to identify additional families of genes that participate in the control of cell proliferation and differentiation, cell signalling and cell architecture. The results of the present study are consistent with those of another study that reported that training in an EE for 3 h, 6 h, 12 days or 14 days changes the expression of about 100 genes in the cortex of adult mice (Rampon et al, 2000a). Specifically, the genes whose expression levels were changed at 14 days belong to the same families of genes that those found in the present study that focused on the striatum.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Environmental enrichment during adolescence regulates gene expression in the striatum of mice

et al. 2008

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We have previously shown that environmental enrichment decreases the activating and rewarding effects of the psych psychostimulant cocaine and increases resistance to the neurotoxic effect of the Parkinson-inducing drug MPTP. These effects were accompanied by an increase in the striatal expression of the neurotrophin BDNF, an increase in the striatal levels of delta-Fos B and by a decrease in striatal levels of the dopamine transporter, the main molecular target for cocaine and MPTP. Here, we used cDNA arrays to investigate the effects of rearing mice in enriched environments from weaning to adulthood on the profile of expression of genes in the striatum focusing on genes involved in intracellular signalling and functioning. We found that mice reared in an enriched environment show several alterations in the levels of mRNA coding for proteins involved in cell proliferation, cell differentiation, signal transduction, transcription and translation, cell structure and meta metabolism. Several of these findings were further confirmed by real-time quantitative PCR and, in the case of protein kinase C lambda, also by western blot. These findings are the first description of alterations in striatal gene expression by an enriched environment. The striatal gene expression regulation by environment that we report here may play a role in the resistance to the effects of drugs of abuse and dopaminergic neurotoxins previously reported.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Environmental enrichment during adolescence regulates gene expression in the striatum of mice

et al. 2008

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“…According to the evolutionary principle of behavioral and neuronal adaptation, recruitment of additional brain areas implicates neuronal plasticity that is induced whenever the neural system is confronted with difficult or new situations and when previously established behavioral repertoire is not sufficient to manage the environmental requirements. This supports the notion that novel experiences stimulate processes of neural plasticity mediated by gene expression that in turn enhances cognitive processing (Rampon et al 2000) even in older age (Swaab and Bao 2011). The association between experience and neural plasticity has been repeatedly reported both in animal and human studies (Arendash et al 2004;Bhardwaj et al 2006;Curtis et al 2007;Eriksson et al 1998;Frick and Fernandez 2003;Kempermann et al 1997;Milgram et al 2006).…”

Section: Neuronal Plasticity and Compensation In Agingsupporting

confidence: 69%

Neurocognition of aging in working environments

Gajewski

Falkenstein

2011

ZAF

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Aging is accompanied by changes in sensory, motor and cognitive functions. Particularly, a high status of socalled fluid cognitive functions is crucial for the employability at an older age. This status, which can be assessed by psychometric and neuroimaging methods, depends on a number of factors like physical constitution, nutrition, education and work demands. This paper systematically analyses factors affecting cognitive functions in aging and reviews current neuroscientific findings regarding training induced neuronal plasticity and compensation of cognitive declines in aging. In the second part the relationship between cognitive functions and the type of work will be discussed and the project PFIFF presented as an example for transfer of neuroscientific basic research to an applied context that aimed at ameliorating and evaluating age-and job-related cognitive deficits. The results of the first project period showed that cognitive decline, as revealed in behavior and brain wave data, may be accelerated by long-lasting unchallenging work and, hence, may occur already in middle age. In the second part of PFIFF a 3-month program consisting of a supervised cognitive training was implemented in a group of 120 assembly-line employees. Before and after the training

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“…However, it is likely that the inhibitory system is not the only transmitter system affected in the visual cortex by enriched environment. Indeed, enrichment in the adult causes changes in the NMDA receptor expression and in the expression of downstream molecules (Rampon et al, 2000;Molteni et al, 2002). NMDA receptors have been demonstrated to play a crucial role in ocular dominance plasticity and in development of receptive field properties in the visual cortex (Bear et al, 1990;Roberts et al, 1998;Ramoa et al, 2001;Fagiolini et al, 2003) and to be highly sensitive to activity (Quinlan et al, 1999;Philpot et al, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Exposure to enriched environments has been shown to elicit various plastic responses leading to improved learning and memory and to promote structural reorganizations in the brain, especially in the visual cortex (Rosenzweig and Bennett, 1996;Rampon et al, 2000;van Praag et al, 2000;Mohammed et al, 2002). Thus far, most studies on enriched environment were performed using adult animals wherein the enriched experience was provided either after weaning or in adulthood, but it is not known whether environmental enrichment can affect the development of the nervous system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acceleration of Visual System Development by Environmental Enrichment

Cancedda¹,

Putignano²,

Sale³

et al. 2004

J. Neurosci.

242

217

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Thus far, the developmental plasticity of the visual system has been studied by altering or reducing visual experience. Here, we investigated whether a complex sensory-motor stimulation, provided by rearing animals in an enriched environment, affects visual system development. We found that raising mice in this condition causes an earlier eye opening, a precocious development of visual acuity, and an accelerated decline of white matter-induced long-term potentiation. These effects are accompanied by a precocious cAMP response element-mediated gene expression and a significant increase of BDNF protein and GAD65/67 expression in enriched pups. In addition, we showed that enriched pups experienced higher levels of licking behavior provided by adult females. Thus, rearing mice from birth in an enriched environment leads to a conspicuous acceleration of visual system development as ascertained at behavioral, electrophysiological, and molecular level.

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Effects of environmental enrichment on gene expression in the brain

Cited by 554 publications

References 56 publications

Environmental enrichment during adolescence regulates gene expression in the striatum of mice

Environmental enrichment during adolescence regulates gene expression in the striatum of mice

Neurocognition of aging in working environments

Acceleration of Visual System Development by Environmental Enrichment

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