Effect of environmental enrichment and isolation on behavioral and histological indices following focal ischemia in old rats

AbstractStroke is a disease of aging. In stroke patients, the enriched group that received stimulating physical, eating, socializing, and group activities resulted in higher activity levels including spending more time on upper limb, communal socializing, listening and iPad activities. While environmental enrichment has been shown to improve the behavioral outcome of stroke in young animals, the effect of an enriched environment on behavioral recuperation and histological markers of cellular proliferation, neuroinflammation, and neurogenesis inold subjects is not known. We used behavioral testing and immunohistochemistry to assess the effect of environment on post-stroke recovery of young and aged rats kept either in isolation or stimulating social, motor, and sensory environment ((  +)Env). We provide evidence that post-stroke animals environmental enrichment ( +)Env had a significant positive effect on recovery on the rotating pole, the inclined plane, and the labyrinth test. Old age exerted a small but significant effect on lesion size, which was independent of the envir onment. Further, a smaller infarct volume positively correlated with better recovery of spatial learning based on positive reinforcement, working and reference memory of young, and to a lesser extent, old animals kept in ( +)Env. Histologically, isolation/impoverishment was associated with an incr eased number of proliferating inflammatory cells expressing ED1 cells in the peri-infarcted area of old ...
Source: AGE - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research