Refining environmental enrichment to advance rehabilitation based research after experimental traumatic brain injury.

Refining environmental enrichment to advance rehabilitation based research after experimental traumatic brain injury. Exp Neurol. 2017 Apr 27;294:12-18 Authors: Radabaugh HL, LaPorte MJ, Greene AM, Bondi CO, Lajud N, Kline AE Abstract The typical environmental enrichment (EE) paradigm, which consists of continuous exposure after experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI), promotes behavioral and histological benefits. However, rehabilitation is often abbreviated in the clinic and administered in multiple daily sessions. While recent studies have demonstrated that a once daily 6-hr bout of EE confers benefits comparable to continuous EE, breaking the therapy into two shorter sessions may increase novelty and ultimately enhance recovery. Hence, the aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that functional and histological outcomes will be significantly improved by daily preclinical neurorehabilitation consisting of two 3-hr periods of EE vs. a single 6-hr session. Anesthetized adult male rats received a controlled cortical impact of moderate-to-severe injury (2.8mm tissue deformation at 4m/s) or sham surgery and were then randomly assigned to groups receiving standard (STD) housing, a single 6-hr session of EE, or two 3-hr sessions of EE daily for 3weeks. Motor function (beam-balance/traversal) and acquisition of spatial learning/memory retention (Morris water maze) were assessed on post-operative days 1-5 and 14-19, respectively. Cor...
Source: Experimental Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research