Enriched Environment Prevents Surgery-Induced Persistent Neural Inhibition and Cognitive Dysfunction

Abstract

Perioperative neurocognitive disorders (PND) encompass short-term delirium and long-term cognitive dysfunction. Aging increases the susceptibility to PND, yet the neural mechanism is not known. In this study, we monitored the dynamic changes of neuronal activity in the prelimbic cortex before and after surgery. We found that anesthesia combined with surgery, but not anesthesia alone, induced a prolonged decrease in neuronal activity during the post-operation period in the aged mice, but not in the adult mice. The prolonged decrease in neuronal activity was accompanied by surgery-induced microglial activation and proinflammatory cytokines expression. Importantly, we found that the enriched environment (EE) completely prevented both the prolonged neural inhibition and neuroinflammation, and improved cognitive function in the aged mice. These results indicate that the prolonged neural inhibition correlated to PND and that EE before the surgery could effectively alleviate the surgery- induced cognitive dysfunction.

Enriched environment ameliorates fear memory impairments induced by sleep deprivation via inhibiting PIEZO1/calpain/autophagy signaling pathway in the basal forebrain

“…An EE means more room to move, more objects to explore, entertain, and exercise, and greater motor and sensory stimulation than a CE, which may help maintain cognitive stability or reduce cognitive impairment due to brain injury. 43,44 Similar to a previous report, 29 the present study found that EE improved cognitive impairments following acute sleep deprivation (Figure 1). Further experiments found that activation of basal forebrain PIEZO1 abrogated the cognitive protective effect of EE (Figure 2), suggesting that the basal forebrain and PIEZO1 signaling may be the possible brain regions and signaling mechanisms of EE-induced memory maintenance.…”

“…Various pet toys, including small houses, seesaws, rainbow channels, swings, L‐shaped tunnels, crawling tubes, inclined ladders, fitness rings, and running wheels, were placed in clear acrylic cages (40 × 30 × 40 cm). They were changed each morning with new toys of different colors and shapes to stimulate learning and active exploration 29 . Five mice were housed per cage to ensure proper socialization.…”

“…They were changed each morning with new toys of different colors and shapes to stimulate learning and active exploration. 29 Five mice were housed per cage to ensure proper socialization. The mice were placed in enriched environment cages for 2 weeks to learn and adapt before subsequent experiments.…”

Long-term environmental enrichment overcomes depression, learning, and memory impairment in elderly CD-1 mice with maternal sleep deprivation exposure

“…Previous studies found that hippocampal microglial cells activated by different stress could transform their morphology and increase their motility to activate a series of inflammatory signaling pathways, leading to the upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines in the hippocampus ( Karve et al, 2016 ; Yang et al, 2021 ). Moreover, upregulated inflammatory cytokines in the hippocampus are closely related to depression and cognitive impairment.…”

Betaine alleviates cognitive impairment induced by homocysteine through attenuating NLRP3-mediated microglial pyroptosis in an m6A-YTHDF2-dependent manner

“…NOR test is commonly employed to study learning and memory in rodents [ 36 ], as previously reported [ 37 ]. During the habituation phase, the rats were placed in the center of a chamber (90 × 90 × 60 cm) without objects and allowed to explore the chamber for 10 min.…”