engleski

Enviromental enrichment has beneficial effect on cognition in the rat model of sporadic alzheimer’s disease

Background A growing body of evidence indicates indeed that in sporadic type of AD (sAD) physical and mental activities have beneficial effects on cognitive impairments, but long lasting cognitive and physical stimulation has not been studied yet in patients with sAD. We investigated whether the long-term enriched housing and intensive cognitive training could have a positive effect on cognitive deficit in learning and memory found in streptozotocin-intracerebroventricularly (STZ- icv), treated rats, as an experimental model of sAD model. Material and Methods Adult male Wistar rats were treated icv with streptozotocin while the controls received vehicle only. Half of the control and STZ-icv treated group has been afterwards rendered to enriched housing (EH) and intensive mental training in the Morris Water Maze Swimming test and Dray maze for three months. Data were statistically analyzed by Mann-Whitney U-test (p<0.05). Results Significant cognitive deficit has been found in Morris Water Maze Swimming test (MWM) in the third week (29%) which was not significant after the EH and intensive training, three months following the STZ-icv treatment in comparison to the controls. Also, in MWM test the increase in AUC (area under the curve) during the time of learning in STZ-icv group was statistically significant only before the EH and intensive training, showing the slower learning process in STZ-icv rats. Four weeks after STZ-icv treatment, the significant increase in anxiety (142%) and decrease in moving (31%) were found in dry maze while no change was found in the same test after the EH and intensive training three months following the STZ-icv treatment. Conclusion Our results show that early and long term intensive psychical and mental training has beneficial affect on the memory loss and anxiety caused by the STZ-icv treatment.

Sporadic Alzheimer disease; streptozotocin; cognitive impairments; learning; memory

nije evidentirano