Journal
AGE
Volume 35, Issue 4, Pages 1027-1043Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11357-012-9424-8
Keywords
Acetylcholine; Aging; Anxiety; Basal forebrain; Enriched environment; Recent and remote memory; Striatum
Categories
Funding
- Universite de Strasbourg
- CNRS
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We assessed lifelong environmental enrichment effects on possible age-related modifications in emotional behaviors, spatial memory acquisition, retrieval of recent and remote spatial memory, and cholinergic forebrain systems. At the age of 1 month, Long-Evans female rats were placed in standard or enriched rearing conditions and tested after 3 (young), 12 (middle-aged), or 24 (aged) months. Environmental enrichment decreased the reactivity to stressful situations regardless of age. In the water maze test, it delayed the onset of learning deficits and prevented age-dependent spatial learning and recent memory retrieval alterations. Remote memory retrieval, which was altered independently of age under standard rearing conditions, was rescued by enrichment in young and middle-aged, but unfortunately not aged rats. A protected basal forebrain cholinergic system, which could well be one out of several neuronal manifestations of lifelong environmental enrichment, might have contributed to the behavioral benefits of this enrichment.
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