A influência do ambiente enriquecido na memória espacial de camundongos Swiss em três diferentes faixas etárias

Abstract

By promoting hippocampal neurogenesis, Enriched Environment appears to have a neuroprotective effect on memory impairment associated with aging, resulting in improved spatial memory of mice. However, doubts remain as to the best age for initiating environmental enrichment. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of enriched environment on the acquisition of spatial memory in mice of three different age groups subjected to this environment. Weanling (21 days), young (three months) and young adult (seven months) female Swiss mice were housed in a standard control environment or an enriched environment for 50 days, and their spatial memory was tested using the Morris Water Maze. After 40 days of housing, training of spatial memory in the Morris Water Maze was initiated, measuring the variable of latency in finding the hidden platform. The final test was performed on the 50th day housing. No experimental effect in control and enriched groups in the acquisition of the spatial memory test was observed (two-way ANOVA, p = 0.471). No effect of time of analysis, i.e. among the three age groups studied (p = 0.341) and no interaction between the experimental group and the time of analysis (p = 0.590) was observed. No effect of experimental group and training day, nor interaction between these factors was demonstrated in relation to the latency in finding the platform for weanling mice (two-way ANOVA for repeated measures, p = 0.481, p = 0.448 and p = 0,827, respectively) and young mice (p = 0.301, p = 0.053 and p = 0.941, respectively). Regarding young adult mice, an effect in the experimental group was observed (p = 0.027), with a lower latency to find the platform obtained by the control group (Tukey post-test, p < 0.05). However, there was no effect of training day (p = 0.846), nor interaction between the experimental group and training day in relation to the latency in finding the hidden platform (p=1.000). In this study, environmental enrichment was shown to not interfere with the acquisition of spatial memory in weanling, young and young adult female Swiss mice.