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Environment enrichment rescues the neurodegenerative phenotypes in presenilins‐deficient mice
Author(s) -
Dong Suzhen,
Li Chunxia,
Wu Pu,
Tsien Joe Z.,
Hu Yinghe
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2007.05641.x
Subject(s) - neurodegeneration , forebrain , inflammation , presenilin , environmental enrichment , neurogenesis , neuroscience , neuroinflammation , conditional gene knockout , atrophy , biology , phenotype , knockout mouse , immunity , disease , alzheimer's disease , immunology , immune system , medicine , gene , central nervous system , genetics
Presenilin (PS) 1 and 2 conditional double knockout (cDKO) mice show progressive memory dysfunction and forebrain degeneration. Gene expression profiling results revealed a strong activation of immunity and inflammation responses in the brains of 10‐month‐old cDKO mice. As environmental enrichment (EE) has been shown to be able to improve memory and induce neurogenesis of the brain, we assessed the effects of EE on the memory performance and the neurodegeneration in cDKO mice. We found that EE effectively enhanced memory and partially rescued the forebrain atrophy of the cDKO mice. Our results suggest that immunity and inflammation could play important roles in the neurodegeneration of cDKO mice. Furthermore, the beneficial effects of EE may be associated with the inhibition of the expression of immunity and inflammation‐related genes in the brain.