Balietti Marta, Principi Elisa, Giacomini Luca, Giorgetti Belinda, Conti Fiorenzo
Center for Neurobiology of Aging, IRCCS INRCA, Ancona, Italy.
Section of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy.
Heliyon. 2024 May 28;10(11):e32021. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e32021. eCollection 2024 Jun 15.
Anxiety significantly diminishes the quality of life in older adults, and the drugs used for its treatment often come with risky side effects. Non-pharmacological protocols could be valuable, but more research is needed in this area. Environmental enrichment induces positive effects on anxiety-like behavior in young and adult animals; whether the same happens in aged animals is still elusive. The aged brain undergoes changes that contribute to make it "fragile" and consequently even mild, potentially positive stimuli can trigger dyshomeostasis, worsening rather than ameliorating functioning. Here, by combining behavioral analysis and measurement of serum and brain corticosterone levels, we show that late-life environmental enrichment can induce eustress or distress, depending on sex and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function. These findings pave the way for optimizing outcomes and minimizing undesired effects in the clinical setting, underscoring the need to overcome the limits of gender medicine and emphasizing the crucial role of individually tailored therapies.
焦虑显著降低老年人的生活质量，而用于治疗焦虑的药物往往伴有危险的副作用。非药物治疗方案可能很有价值，但这一领域仍需要更多研究。环境富集对幼年和成年动物的焦虑样行为有积极影响；在老年动物中是否也是如此仍不清楚。老年大脑会发生一些变化，使其变得“脆弱”，因此即使是轻微的、潜在的积极刺激也可能引发内环境失衡，导致功能恶化而非改善。在此，通过结合行为分析以及血清和脑皮质酮水平的测量，我们发现晚年的环境富集可诱发良性应激或不良应激，这取决于性别和下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴的功能。这些发现为在临床环境中优化治疗效果并将不良影响降至最低铺平了道路，强调了克服性别医学局限性的必要性，并突出了个体化定制疗法的关键作用。
