Sampedro-Piquero P, Begega A, Zancada-Menendez C, Cuesta M, Arias J L
Laboratorio de Neurociencias, Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain.
Área de Metodología, Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain.
Neuroscience. 2013 Sep 17;248:43-53. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2013.06.003. Epub 2013 Jun 12.
We assessed the effect of 3h of environmental enrichment (EE) exposure per day started at different ages (3 and 18months old) on the performance in a spatial memory task and on brain regions involved in the spatial learning (SPL) process using the principal component analysis (PCA). The animals were tested in the four-arm radial water maze (4-RAWM) for 4days, with six daily trials. We used cytochrome c oxidase (COx) histochemistry to determine the brain oxidative metabolic changes related to age, SPL and EE. Behavioural results showed that the enriched groups, regardless of their age, achieved better performance in the spatial task. Interestingly, in the case of the distance travelled in the 4-RAWM, the effect of the EE was dependent on the age, so the young enriched group travelled a shorter distance compared to the aged enriched group. Respect to COx histochemistry results, we found that different brain mechanisms are triggered in aged rats to solve the spatial task, compared to young rats. PCA revealed the same brain functional network in both age groups, but the contribution of the brain regions involved in this network was slightly different depending on the age of the rats. Thus, in the aged group, brain regions involved in anxiety-like behaviour, such as the amygdala or the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis had more relevance; whereas in the young enriched group the frontal and the hippocampal subregions had more contribution.
我们评估了从不同年龄（3个月和18个月大）开始，每天进行3小时环境富集（EE）暴露对空间记忆任务表现以及对使用主成分分析（PCA）参与空间学习（SPL）过程的脑区的影响。动物在四臂放射状水迷宫（4-RAWM）中进行了4天测试，每天进行6次试验。我们使用细胞色素c氧化酶（COx）组织化学来确定与年龄、SPL和EE相关的脑氧化代谢变化。行为结果表明，无论年龄大小，富集组在空间任务中表现更好。有趣的是，在4-RAWM中行进距离方面，EE的影响取决于年龄，因此年轻富集组比老年富集组行进的距离更短。关于COx组织化学结果，我们发现与年轻大鼠相比，老年大鼠为解决空间任务触发了不同的脑机制。PCA显示两个年龄组的脑功能网络相同，但该网络中涉及的脑区贡献根据大鼠年龄略有不同。因此，在老年组中，涉及焦虑样行为的脑区，如杏仁核或终纹床核更相关；而在年轻富集组中，额叶和海马亚区贡献更大。
