Environmental enrichment effects on cognitive and emotional behaviours in a 3xTgAD mouse model
-
1
School of Medicine, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Spain
-
2
University of California, United States
Mimicking the progression and the neuropathological landmarks of human Alzheimer’s disease, a triple transgenic mouse model (3xTgAD) has been developed which shows a progressive loss of cognitive functions as well as the appearance of neuropsychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, emotional disturbances, etc. The model harbours human APPSwe, TauP301L and PS1M146V, developing Aβ plaques and tau-tangle pathologies in an age-dependent and region-specific manner. Cognitive deficits and neuropsychiatric-like symptoms appear from early stages of the disease (6 month of age) when only intraneuronal Aβ is observed and they progress with age and development of extracellular Aβ plaques and neurofibrilary tangles. The present work was aimed at studying the putative therapeutic effects of environmental enrichment (8 mice per cage with objects of different shapes and colours changed every two days, a permanent mouse house and a wheel) on cognitive performance and behavioural alterations of 3xTgAD mice as compared to animals kept under standard housing conditions (2-3 animals per cage). The treatment began at early stages of the disease (6 months of age) and lasted for 5.5 months. Thereafter, its effects were evaluated in a longitudinal study (at 12 and 15 month of age) with a battery of behavioural tests (corner test, sensorymotor tasks, open field, dark-light box, hole-board test, and several Morris water maze paradigms) during the advanced stages of the disease, i.e. when the Aβ plaques and tau-tangle pathologies appear. The results show that environmental enrichment induced an improvement of cognitive function of 3xTgAD mice as well as and attenuation of some fear-related (neuropsychiatric-like) symptoms.
In accordance with 86/609/EEC regarding the care and use of animals for experimental procedures. Supported by SGR2005-00085, SAF2006-13642.
Conference:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster presentations
Citation:
Blazquez
G,
Canete
T,
Tobena
A,
LaFerla
F,
Fernandez-Teruel
A and
Gimenez-Lort
L
(2009). Environmental enrichment effects on cognitive and emotional behaviours in a 3xTgAD mouse model.
Conference Abstract:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.094
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
08 Jun 2009;
Published Online:
08 Jun 2009.
*
Correspondence:
Gloria Blazquez, School of Medicine, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Barcelona, Spain, gloriablaz@yahoo.es