The influence of enriched environment on spatial memory in Swiss mice of different ages

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of enriched environment on spatial memory acquisition in mice of three different age groups. Weanling, young, and young adult female Swiss mice were housed in a standard control or enriched environment for 50 days, and their spatial memory was tested with the Morris Water Maze. We did not observe an experimental effect for spatial memory acquisition, and there was neither an effect of time of analysis nor an interaction between experimental group and time of analysis. Regarding effects of experimental group and training day in relation to latency in finding the hidden platform, we did find an effect in the experimental young adult mice group (p = 0.027), but there was no interaction between these factors in all three groups. Based on these findings environmental enrichment did not enhance spatial memory acquisition in female Swiss mice in the tested age groups.

Coping with Stress During Aging: The Importance of a Resilient Brain

“…This lower locomotor activity has been also interpreted as an enhanced habituation to the novelty of the testing environment [ 93 ]. In addition, enriched rats and mice were found to spend more time in the open arms in the elevated plus maze (EPM), and showed lower amounts of defensive burying and less defensive behavior when in close proximity to a predator, also suggesting reduced anxiety [ 94 , 12 ]. Finally, we found that enriched aged rats showed a reduced emotional reactivity to the conflict approach/avoidance and an improvement in decision making in the elevated-zero maze (EZM) test.…”

“…However, aged rats exposed to EE for 8 weeks have shown an increase in the extracellular levels of GABAergic compared to standard-housing condition rats [ 133 ]. Related to this, our group found that EE increased the expression of parvalbumin-positive cells in some medial prefrontal regions, such as cingulate and prelimbic cortices involved in the regulation of stress-related behaviors [ 12 ].…”

“…This paradigm consists of modifying the standard housing condition of the laboratory animals by another in which social, cognitive, physical and sensorial stimulation is given to the animals. This type of complex stimulation improves not only cognitive functions, such as memory or attention [ 7 - 12 ], but also reduces anxiety, impulsiveness and increases the tendency to play and explore new and potentially stressful situations [ 13 - 17 ].…”