Nevertheless, our results in this regard indicate that an increase in the number of new neurons does not always correlate with an improvement in learning capabilities, since neurogenesis was already activated by both physical and social enrichment, whilst only physically enriched environments were able to affect some learning performance tests.
Environment enrichment is a rising topic for animal welfare, but measures to identify effective enrichment interventions are lacking.
The variation in EC is attributed to the different levels of enrichment in depositional environment during accumulation (Rimmer 2004).
In [6], Rosenzweig argued that enrichment of the environment (larger carrying capacity K) leads to destabilizing of the coexistence equilibrium, which is the so-called paradox of enrichment.
Environment enrichment had significant beneficial effects in 192 IgG-saporin-lesioned rats, suggesting that lesioned rats at late post-lesion times (over 1 year) still have appreciable cognitive plasticity.
Enrichment of the environment for captive animals is aimed at producing beneficial effects on the behaviour and physiology of relevant species, and is commonly used to reduce harmful social behaviours and stereotypies.
The results of this study are important to highlight the need to develop experimental protocols using animal models that more closely resemble the characteristics of studies with humans and motivate more investigations to determine the conditions under which BDNF could be a biomarker of the effects of environment enrichment.
They were housed in conditions which took account of their social needs and they participated in the institutional primate environment enrichment plan.
All animals were provided with food and water ad libitum, aspen wood bedding and an environment enrichment consisting of tissue paper for nesting.
Some interventions, such as environment enrichment, exercise, and antidepressant treatment, increase adult neurogenesis, accompanied by beneficial effects on cognition and mood regulation (Ehninger & Kempermann, 2003; Santarelli et al., 2003; Olson et al., 2006; Silva et al., 2008; Fabel et al., 2009).
