Attenuation of Restraint Stress-Induced Behavioral Deficits by Environmental Enrichment in Male Rats

Post-exposing the rats to enriched environment has shown to attenuate the psychoneurological and behavioral deficits produced as a result of chronic stress in rats. But here we studied the possibility whether the pre-exposure of enriched environment might affect the behavioral deficits produced as a post-treatment to chronic restraint stress. Behavioral parameters, associated with chronic stress such as depression, anxiety and memory were monitored before and after stress treatment, in socially enriched and socially non-enriched conditions. According to the results the rats that were pre-exposed to socially enriched conditions indicated an anti-depressive and anxiolytic activity after repeated stress procedure as compared to the rats of socially non-enriched environment. Furthermore, improvement and retention of short term and long term memory was observed in enriched rats before and after restraint stress procedure. This study can be related to the beneficial role of earlier exposure to enriched environment that may affect the behaviors related to response of brain to stress stimuli and prevention of behavioral deficits that may lead to various psychological abnormalities that are related to prolonged stress exposures. (C) 2017 PVJ. All rights reserved