Improvement of autophagy dysfunction as a potential mechanism for environmental enrichment to protect blood-brain barrier in rats with vascular cognitive impairment

•Environmental enrichment (EE) can attenuate cognitive decline in chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH) rats.•EE can ameliorate blood-brain barrier (BBB) injury caused by CCH.•EE can improve the autophagy dysfunction, which may mediate the protective effect of EE on BBB.