AUTHOR=Begenisic Tatjana , Spolidoro Maria , Braschi Chiara , Baroncelli Laura , Milanese Marco , Pietra Gianluca , Fabbri Maria Elena , Bonanno Giambattista , Cioni Giovanni , Maffei Lamberto , Sale Alessandro TITLE=Environmental enrichment decreases GABAergic inhibition and improves cognitive abilities, synaptic plasticity, and visual functions in a mouse model of Down syndrome JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience VOLUME=volume 5 - 2011 YEAR=2011 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fncel.2011.00029 DOI=10.3389/fncel.2011.00029 ISSN=1662-5102 ABSTRACT=

Down syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic disorder associated with mental retardation. It has been repeatedly shown that Ts65Dn mice, the prime animal model for DS, have severe cognitive and neural plasticity defects due to excessive inhibition. We report that increasing sensory-motor stimulation in adulthood through environmental enrichment (EE) reduces brain inhibition levels and promotes recovery of spatial memory abilities, hippocampal synaptic plasticity, and visual functions in adult Ts65Dn mice.