Environmental enrichment has been shown to increase cognitive abilities and accelerate recovery from a number of disease states. Typically, enrichment protocols last from four to eight weeks, however, it has previously been shown that two weeks of environmental enrichment is sufficient to increase cognitive abilities and the proliferation of the astroglial stem cell pool in juvenile mice. The current study examines whether a short-term enrichment protocol can induce similar effects in adults as compared to juveniles. Using juvenile and adult wild-type mice, we examined the effects of short-term environmental enrichment (including a running wheel) on cognitive abilities, anxiety-like behaviour, and the stem cell potential of sub-ventricular neural stem cells (NSC's) in vitro using neurosphere assays. We found that short-term environmental enrichment decreased anxiety behaviour and increased overall memory abilities similarly in juveniles and adults. However, the rate of acquisition on the Morris water maze, hippocampal Sox2 and Ki67 expression, and neurosphere potential increased in response to enrichment only in juveniles, suggesting that the effects of enrichment on these measures are age dependant. Together, these data suggest that the potential beneficial effects of environmental manipulations decrease with age.

中文翻译：

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青少年和成年小鼠短期环境富集的差异作用。

研究表明，环境富集可以提高认知能力并加速从多种疾病状态中恢复。通常，富集方案持续四到八周，但是，以前已经证明，两周的环境富集足以增加幼鼠的认知能力和星形胶质干细胞池的增殖。当前的研究检查了短期浓缩方案是否可以与成年人相比在成年人中引起类似的效果。我们使用幼年和成年野生型小鼠，研究了短期环境富集（包括滚轮）对认知能力，焦虑行为和脑室下神经干细胞（NSC's）干细胞潜能的影响。在体外使用神经球测定法。我们发现，在青少年和成年人中，短期环境富集减少了焦虑行为，增加了整体记忆能力。但是，仅在青少年中，对富集的响应会增加Morris水迷宫，海马Sox2和Ki67表达以及神经球电位的获取率，这表明富集对这些措施的影响取决于年龄。总之，这些数据表明，环境操纵的潜在有益影响随着年龄的增长而降低。提示富集对这些措施的影响取决于年龄。总之，这些数据表明，环境操纵的潜在有益影响随着年龄的增长而降低。提示富集对这些措施的影响取决于年龄。总之，这些数据表明，环境操纵的潜在有益影响随着年龄的增长而降低。