Title : Continued refinement of environmental enrichment as a preclinical model of neurorehabilitation after experimental brain trauma
Abstract:
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects two million people in the United States each year and several million more worldwide, making it a significant health care issue. Brain traumas range from mild to severe with the former being the case in most occurrences and generally not displaying marked behavioral symptoms, while the latter occurs less often, but presents significant motor and/or cognitive dysfunction. Numerous preclinical pharmacotherapies have been evaluated, but have not translated to the clinic. Rehabilitation is currently the best option for TBI patients. Hence, in this presentation, environmental enrichment (EE), a preclinical model of neurorehabilitation that has been shown to confer motor, cognitive, and histological benefits after TBI will be discussed. Specifically, EE studies that range from the early and continuous exposure paradigm (i.e., typical EE) to some of the latest work where delayed and abbreviated EE, that more likely mimics the clinic, will be described. The data presented are derived from anesthetized adult male/female rats that received a cortical impact of moderate severity or sham injury and were then randomly assigned to EE or standard (STD) housing. The results generally show that motor and cognitive function is significantly improved in the EE vs. vehicle control groups and that EE can be considered a robust preclinical model of neurorehabilitation.
