A meta-analysis (click!) of a few dozen research studies regarding the effects of an enriched environment on rats and mice who the researchers induced with Parkinson’s disease ends with this conclusion (I always jump to conclusions):
“The neuroprotective effects of EE [‘enriched environment’] have been well established by numerous studies, which raise the question whether we should pay more attention and focus should be placed also on providing a stimulating environment during clinical therapy and rehabilitation of patients suffering from PD. EE could provide a non-pharmaceutical, non-invasive method for possible prevention and treatment of Parkinson’s disease without the side-effects of pharmacotherapy.”
OK, so the first sentence needs grammar editing (“…whether we should pay more attention” to what?), but the general idea sounds good and supports similar research I’ve reported elsewhere (e.g., click!). What surprised me this time is that the article repeatedly states that mice and rats who are introduced to an enriched environment before getting PD, including some who are raised in such a setting from birth, repeatedly fare better, when they finally are infected with the chemical that causes them to become Parkies, than do the control groups who had PD but didn’t live in such an environment.
Some quick Q&A that I thought of as I read the document:
Q: What exactly is “enriched environment” for mice and rats?
A: Let’s quote directly from the article:
“The term ‘enriched environment’ refers to altered housing conditions, where the animals are placed into larger cages, compared to standard cages….Regular cages typically only consist of nesting materials, while enriched cages are supplemented with different toys, running wheels, platforms, tunnels, rotating rods of different shape, size and material….There is no standard protocol to create an enriched cage, but the main aim is to provide complex sensorimotor and cognitive stimuli, which is ensured by the continuous change of the supplies. In the reviewed studies, the frequency of changing the toys varied between daily to weekly changes. Several experiments included a social enrichment factor, as a higher number of animals was kept in the enriched cages.”
Q: How long were the animals kept in these enriched environment cages?
A: It depends on the experiment. As I mentioned above, what I found most interesting was that some of the rats and/or mice were put into the enriched cages as soon as they were born. They grew up in this fancy environment before the researchers infected them with the chemical that gave them PD, and lo!, they had fewer problems once they became official Parkies.
Q: Does this mean that humans who grow up in an enriched environment from childhood will also be less affected by PD? What constitutes an enriched environment for human children – or adults?
A: The article doesn’t say.
Q: What were the results of the experiments with mice and rats? How did an enriched environment help them?
A: Let’s bullet some of the specific outcomes:
- “The capacity of EE [enriched environment] to reverse motor deficits was proven by several types of tests in mice.”
- “Enriched animals showed less decreased spontaneous activity.”
- “Apart from motor symptoms, human PD patients may have emotional and cognitive problems, which were also assessed [with the mice] by [an] elevated plus maze instrument; the test showed reduced anxiety levels in enriched mice.”
- “Urakawa and co-workers assessed motor symptoms with [a] beam walking test and observed better performance in enriched animals.”
- “The better performance of enriched animals on [the] beam walking test further proves that environmental enrichment can improve balance coordination skills and sensory ability.”
The question still remains: what do these results imply for us humans? I can always fall back on what I’ve written before (e.g., click!) – or I can try a Google search with the words “Enriched Environment Parkinson’s Disease.”
Just a minute…
OK, I Googled “Enriched Environment Parkinson’s Disease” and came up with oodles of Google links to check out. Will report on some next week!
