1. Impact of Exposure to Environmental Enrichment on the Anxiety-Like Behavior of Ovariectomized Mice
- Author
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Manuela Castellanos-Pérez, Victor Manuel Vega-Villa, Alfredo Briones-Aranda, and Ofir Picazo Picazo
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Elevated plus maze ,medicine.drug_class ,Physical Enrichment ,lcsh:RC435-571 ,Social Enrichment ,Anxiolytic ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Internal medicine ,lcsh:Psychiatry ,medicine ,Ovariectomized Mice ,Intact male ,Environmental enrichment ,Anxiety like ,Anxiety-Like Behavior ,business.industry ,030227 psychiatry ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Endocrinology ,Ovariectomized rat ,Anxiety ,Original Article ,medicine.symptom ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Anxiolytic agents - Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the influence of short-term (2-week) exposure to social (SE) and/or physical enrichment (PE) on the anxiety-like behavior of ovariectomized (OVX) NIH Swiss mice. Method: One week after surgery, each OVX mouse was housed under one of 4 social conditions: (1) isolated, (2) accompanied by an intact female, (3) accompanied by an intact male, or (4) in a community of 10 OVX individuals. The animals in each of these environments were divided into 2 subgroups, consisting of the presence and absence of PE. Following a 2-week exposure to the respective conditions, each OVX mouse was subjected to either the light/dark exploration test (LDT) or the elevated plus maze (EPM) to examine anxiety-like behavior. Results: The LDT and EPM showed very similar patterns. Compared to an impoverished environment, PE elicited a significant anxiolytic effect for OVX mice housed alone or in companion of an intact female (F [1, 54] = 16.11, P = 0.001). By contrast, mice living in community but without PE displayed anxiogenic-like behavior, perhaps due to crowding, compared to the animals living in isolation (F [1, 36] = 5.64, P = 0.023). Conclusion: This study emphasized the importance of taking housing conditions into account during the screening of new anxiolytic agents and the critical role of OVX in the regulation of anxiety. more...
- Published
- 2020