Eckert Michael J, Abraham Wickliffe C
Canadian Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada,
Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2013;15:165-87. doi: 10.1007/7854_2012_215.
Exposure to an enriched environment (EE) is beneficial to the structure and function of the brain. The added sensory, social, and spatial complexity of the EE also improves cognitive functions such as memory in both healthy brains and damaged or diseased brains, yet the underlying neural mechanisms of these cognitive improvements are poorly understood. In particular, studies that have examined the effects of EE on cellular function in the hippocampus, a structure critical for memory storage, have produced somewhat confusing results. Experiments performed in ex vivo hippocampal slices have reported a variety of EE effects on synaptic transmission and plasticity in both CA1 and the dentate gyrus. However, together with data from in vivo recordings made during and after the EE treatment, the overall results suggest an evolution of changes in neuronal function in the hippocampus, whereby there is an early transient increase in cell activity and plasticity that gives rise to more subtle long-term enhancements in cellular and network function that may contribute to enhanced hippocampus-dependent cognition.
置身于丰富环境（EE）对大脑的结构和功能有益。EE所增加的感官、社交和空间复杂性，还能改善健康大脑以及受损或患病大脑的认知功能，如记忆，但这些认知改善背后的神经机制却鲜为人知。特别是，那些研究EE对海马体（对记忆存储至关重要的结构）细胞功能影响的研究，得出的结果有些令人困惑。在离体海马切片上进行的实验报告了EE对CA1和齿状回突触传递及可塑性的多种影响。然而，结合EE治疗期间及之后进行的体内记录数据，总体结果表明海马体神经元功能的变化是一个渐进过程，即细胞活动和可塑性早期会短暂增加，进而导致细胞和网络功能出现更细微的长期增强，这可能有助于增强依赖海马体的认知。
