Effects of Preweaning Environmental Stimulation on Neuronal and Behavioral Impairment Produced by Undernutrition

Abstract

The present study investigates the effects of sensorimotor stimulation on the basal dendrogenesis of superficial cerebrocortical neurons and the accomplishment in the associated exploratory behavior in rats simultaneously exposed to nutritional deprivation. Sprague-Dawley albino rats were submitted to nutritional-environmental influences from birth to the 21 st postnatal day. Exploratory behavior was assessed by the evaluation of locomotor activity in the open-field apparatus. In order to evaluate changes in neuronal morphology induced by nutritional-environmental variables, brains were stained according to the Golgi-Cox-Sholl procedure. Dendritic development was assessed under camera lucida by measuring basal dendritic branching of layer II and III pyramidal neurons, located in the dorsomedial region of the visual cortex of the rat. Morphometrical analysis revealed that both basal dendritic length and branching were significantly reduced by undernutrition. In contrast, environmental stimulation during the suckling period compensated for the neuronal impairment produced by protein-calorie deprivation. An improvement was also observed in exploratory behavior although to a lesser degree, as shown by the open field test data. In conclusion, the present results indicate that sensorimotor stimulation applied during the period of fastest rate of cortical cytodifferentiation compensates for neuronal and behavioral impairment produced by undernutrition.

Chronic (–)-Deprenyl Administration Attenuates Dendritic Developmental Impairment Induced by Early Social Isolation in the Rat

“…At P82 all animals were examined for locomotor activity in response to novelty in the open-field apparatus as previously described [21] . Briefly, each rat was placed in the center of 80 !…”

Role of an enriched environment on the restoration of behavioral deficits in Lurcher mutant mice

“…At this time the mother was taken away, and within the litter, males and females were separated and reared apart in similar cages until the adult period. We chose to place the animals in the enriched cages from birth because it has been demonstrated that preweaning environmental conditions influence both behavior (Labarba, Fernandez, White, & Stewart, 1974;Labarba & Stewart, 1976;Pascual, Hervias, & Figueroa, 1996) and development of the central nervous system (Fulker & Rick, 1973;Pascual, Hervias, Toha, Valero, & Figueroa, 1998;Sanchez, Aguado, Sanchez-Toscano, & Saphier, 1995;Venable, Fernandez, Diaz, & Pinto-Hamuy, 1989) and, interestingly, that in rats, preweaning was more efficient than postweaning enrichment in their learning capabilities (Venable et al, 1988).…”

Early vibrissae removal facilitates cortical spreading depression propagation in the brain of well‐nourished and malnourished developing rats

“…These data indicate negative effects of sensory activation deficiency on malnourished brain. On the other hand, malnourished organisms under nutritional therapy recover better when environmental stimulation is added to that therapy (Celedon and De Andraca, 1979; Grantham‐McGregor et al, 1991), and the same seems to be true in laboratory animals (Lima et al, 1999; Pascual et al, 1996). The presumption that changes in CSD features, under the present experimental conditions, can reflect plastic modifications of neural function (Cheetham et al, 2007) seems to us an interesting issue to be further addressed, concerning the susceptibility of the human brain to highly disabling, development‐dependent and energy‐consuming diseases, such as epilepsy and migraine (Rogawski, 2008; Welch, 2005) and brain ischemia (Dohmen et al, 2008; Fabricius et al, 2008).…”