Preclinical neurorehabilitation with environmental enrichment confers cognitive and histological benefits in a model of pediatric asphyxial cardiac arrest.

Preclinical neurorehabilitation with environmental enrichment confers cognitive and histological benefits in a model of pediatric asphyxial cardiac arrest. Exp Neurol. 2020 Nov 02;:113522 Authors: Manole MD, Hook M, Nicholas M, Nelson BP, Liu A, Stezoski Q, Rowley A, Cheng JP, Alexander H, Moschonas EH, Bondi CO, Kline AE Abstract Pediatric asphyxial cardiac arrest (ACA) often leaves children with physical, cognitive, and emotional disabilities that affect overall quality of life, yet rehabilitation is neither routinely nor systematically provided. Environmental enrichment (EE) is considered a preclinical model of neurorehabilitation and thus we sought to investigate its efficacy in our established model of pediatric ACA. Male Sprague-Dawley rat pups (post-natal day 16-18) were randomly assigned to ACA (9.5 min) or Sham injury. After resuscitation, the rats were assigned to 21 days of EE or standard (STD) housing during which time motor, cognitive, and anxiety-like (i.e., affective) outcomes were assessed. Hippocampal CA1 cells were quantified on post-operative day-22. Both ACA + STD and ACA + EE performed worse on beam-balance vs. Sham controls (p < 0.05) and did not differ from one another overall (p > 0.05); however, a single day analysis on the last day of testing revealed that the ACA + EE group performed better than the ACA + STD group (p < 0.05) and did not differ from the Sham controls...
Source: Experimental Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research