Publication: Enriched environment attenuates changes in Water-Maze performance and BDNF level caused by prenatal alcohol exposure
Issued Date
2014-05-15
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eng
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Mahidol University
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Pubmed
Bibliographic Citation
EXCLI Journal. Vol.13, (2014), 536-47
Suggested Citation
Rungpiyada Tipyasang, Sarun Kunwittaya, Sujira Mukda1, Nittaya J Kotchabhakdi, Naiphinich Kotchabhakdi Enriched environment attenuates changes in Water-Maze performance and BDNF level caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. EXCLI Journal. Vol.13, (2014), 536-47. Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/7732
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Title
Enriched environment attenuates changes in Water-Maze performance and BDNF level caused by prenatal alcohol exposure
Abstract
Prenatal exposure to alcohol can result in fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), characterized by significant
changes in the physiology, structural plasticity of hippocampal function, including
long-term deficits in learning and memory. Environmental enrichment has long been known
to improve motor and cognitive function levels, causes several neurochemical and morphological
alterations in the brain. Therefore, the effects of environmental enrichment on the neurobehavioral
and neurotrophic changes in mice exposed prenatally to alcohol were investigated
in this study. The pregnant dams were given 25 % ethanol (w/v) or isocaloric sucrose by
liquid diet from gestation day 7 to 20. After weaning on postnatal day 28, offspring were exposed
to standard cage (CC, CFAS) or enriched living conditions (CE, EFAS) for 8 weeks.
Neurobehavioral studies both on hippocampus-dependent spatial learning and place and cue
learning strategy, a striatum-dependent test, were measured by the Morris water maze task.
Moreover, the reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique was also
used in order to study the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) level in
both the hippocampus and striatum of mice. Neurobehavioral studies show that animals exposed
prenatally to alcohol were impaired as shown in both hippocampal-dependent spatial/place
and striatal-dependent response/cue learning tests. Moreover, the levels of BDNF
expression both in the hippocampus and striatum of mice were also decreased. Interestingly,
environmental enrichment can ameliorate the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure both on the
neurobehavioral and neurotrophic levels. These observations indicated that enriched environment
attenuated memory impairment of prenatal alcohol exposure both in hippocampal and
striatal circuitry.