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Maternal care in the rat influences the development of cognitive function in the offspring through neural systems known to mediate activity-dependent synaptic plasticity. The offspring of mothers that exhibit increased levels of pup licking/grooming (high-LG mothers) show increased hippocampal N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) subunit mRNA expression, enhanced synaptogenesis and improved hippocampal-dependent spatial learning in comparison with animals reared by low-LG mothers. The effects of reduced maternal care on cognitive function are reversed with peripubertal environmental enrichment; however, the neural mechanisms mediating this effect are not known. In these studies we exposed the offspring of high- and low-LG mothers to environmental enrichment from days 22 to 70 of life, and measured the expression of genes encoding for glutamate receptor subunits and synaptophysin expression as a measure of synaptic density. Environmental enrichment reversed the effects of maternal care on synaptic density and this effect was, in turn, associated with a reversal of the effect of maternal care on the NR2A and NR2B subunits of the NMDA receptor, as well as effects on (RS)-alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor subunits. Finally, direct infusion of an NR2B-specific NMIDA receptor antagonist into the hippocampus eliminated the effects of maternal care on spatial learning/memory in the Morris water maze. These findings suggest that: (1) the effects of maternal care are mediated by changes in NR2B gene expression; and (2) that environmental enrichment reverses the effects of reduced maternal care through the same genomic target, the NR2B gene, and possibly effects on other subunits of the NMIDA and AMPA receptors

Aged rats. --- Ampa receptors. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Care. --- Cognitive function. --- Density. --- Dentate gyrus. --- Development. --- Enrichment. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Expression. --- Function. --- Gene-expression. --- Gene. --- Genes. --- Glutamate receptors. --- Glutamate. --- Hippocampal. --- Hippocampus. --- Immediate-early gene. --- Learning. --- Level. --- Life. --- Long-term potentiation. --- Maternal care. --- Maternal-care. --- Maternal. --- Mechanisms. --- Memory consolidation. --- Messenger-rna. --- Morris water maze. --- Mother. --- Mothers. --- Neural systems. --- Nmda receptor. --- Plasticity. --- Rat hippocampus. --- Rat. --- Receptor antagonist. --- Receptor. --- Receptors. --- Spatial learning. --- Spatial memory. --- Spatial. --- Synaptic plasticity. --- System. --- Systems. --- Time. --- Water maze.

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Abstract Cognitive impairment is common after ischemic stroke. In rodent stroke models using occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) this is reflected by impaired spatial memory associated with the size of the ischemic lesion. Housing in an enriched environment enhances brain plasticity and improves recovery of sensorimotor functions after experimental stroke in rats. In this study we report that postischemic housing in an enriched environment also attenuates the long-term spatial memory impairment after MCA occlusion and extinguishes the association between spatial memory and infarct volume. An enriched environment did not significantly alter the expression of selected neuronal plasticity-associated genes 1month after MCA occlusion, indicating that most of the adaptive changes induced by an enriched environment have already occurred at this time point. We conclude that the attenuated memory impairment induced by environmental enrichment after MCA occlusion provides a useful model for further studies on the neurobiological mechanisms of recovery of cognitive functions after ischemic stroke

Association. --- Brain. --- Cerebral ischemia. --- Cerebral-ischemia. --- Cognitive function. --- Cognitive impairment. --- Enriched environment. --- Enriched. --- Enrichment. --- Environment. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Expression. --- Function. --- Gene. --- Genes. --- Housing. --- Infarct. --- Ischemia. --- Ischemic stroke. --- Learning. --- Lesion. --- Long-term. --- Mechanisms. --- Memory. --- Model. --- Models. --- Morris water maze. --- Neuronal. --- Plasticity. --- Rat. --- Rats. --- Recovery. --- Rodent. --- Size. --- Spatial memory. --- Spatial. --- Stroke. --- Time.