Environmental enrichment
Research on animals finds that environmental enrichment could aid the treatment and recovery of numerous brain-related dysfunctions, including Alzheimer's disease and those connected to aging, whereas a lack of stimulation might impair cognitive development.
Moreover, this research also suggests that environmental enrichment leads to a greater level of cognitive reserve, the brain's resilience to the effects of conditions such as aging and dementia.
Research doing this first was started in 1960 at the University of California, Berkeley by Mark Rosenzweig, who compared single rats in normal cages, and those placed in ones with toys, ladders, tunnels, running wheels in groups.
[28] Enriched environments affect the expression of genes that determine neuronal structure in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus.
[35] Changes in Wnt signaling have also been found to mimic in adult mice the effects of environmental enrichment upon synapses in the hippocampus.
There are two mains areas of focus: neurological rehabilitation and cognitive reserve, the brain's resistance to the effects of exposure to physical, natural, and social threats.
A study conducted in 2011 led to the conclusion that environmental enrichment vastly improves the cognitive ability of children with autism.
[38] The same study also showed that there was significant clinical improvement in autistic children exposed to enriched sensorimotor environments, and a vast majority of parents reported that their child's quality of life was much better with the treatment.
[40][41] Through environmental enrichment, researchers were able to enhance and partially repair memory deficits in mice between ages of 2 to 7 months with characteristics of Alzheimer's disease.
[44] Research has indicated that environmental enrichment can help relieve motor and psychiatric deficits caused by Huntington's disease.
It also improves lost protein levels for those with the disease, and prevents striatal and hippocampal deficits in the BDNF, located in the hippocampus.
[45] Multiple studies have reported that environmental enrichment for adult mice helps relieve neuronal death, which is particularly beneficial to those with Parkinson's disease.
[46] A more recent study shows that environmental enrichment particularly affects the nigrostriatal pathway, which is important for managing dopamine and acetylcholine levels, critical for motor deficits.
[47] Research done in animals has shown that subjects recovering in an enriched environment 15 days after having a stroke had significantly improved neurobehavioral function.
Over the course of 30 weeks female mice in enriched environments showed superior ability in motor coordination to those in standard conditions.
[50] A recent study found that adult rats with amblyopia improved visual acuity two weeks after being placed into an enriched environment.
[51] The same study showed that another two weeks after ending environmental enrichment, the rats retained their visual acuity improvement.
[53] Learning and spatial memory that are dependent on the long-term potentiation of the hippocampus are vastly improve as subjects in an enriched environments had lower levels of lead concentration in their hippocampi.
[54] Social interactions, exercise, and novelty all play major roles in aiding the recovery of an injured subject.
[55] Research suggests that environmental enrichment can reverse the effects of maternal separation on stress reactivity, possibly by affecting the hippocampus, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.
[55][17] In all children, maternal care is one of the significant influences for hippocampal development, providing the foundation for stable and individualized learning and memory.
Researchers determined that through environmental enrichment, a neglected child can partially receive the same hippocampal development and stability, albeit not at the same level as that of the presence of a parent or guardian.
[57] As a result, subjects exposed to environmental enrichment aged better due to superior ability in retaining their levels of spatial and learning memory.
[57] Research has shown that mice exposed to environmental enrichment are less affected by the consequences of cocaine exposure in comparison with those in standard environments.
[69] Conversely, enriching the experience of preterm infants with massage quickens the maturation of their electroencephalographic activity and their visual acuity.
