Environmental Enrichment Increases Glucocorticoid Receptors and Decreases GluA2 and Protein Kinase M Zeta (PKMζ) Trafficking During Chronic Stress: A Protective Mechanism?
Published in
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, November 2015
Roseanna M. Zanca, Stephen H. Braren, Brigid Maloney, Lisa M. Schrott, Victoria N. Luine, Peter A. Serrano
Abstract
Environmental enrichment (EE) housing paradigms have long been shown beneficial for brain function involving neural growth and activity, learning and memory capacity, and for developing stress resiliency. The expression of the α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor subunit GluA2, which is important for synaptic plasticity and memory, is increased with corticosterone (CORT), undermining synaptic plasticity and memory. Thus, we determined the effect of EE and stress on modulating GluA2 expression in Sprague-Dawley male rats. Several markers were evaluated which include: plasma CORT, the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), GluA2, and the atypical protein kinase M zeta (PKMζ). For 1 week standard-(ST) or EE-housed animals were treated with one of the following four conditions: (1) no stress; (2) acute stress (forced swim test, FST; on day 7); (3) chronic restraint stress (6 h/day for 7 days); and (4) chronic + acute stress (restraint stress 6 h/day for 7 days + FST on day 7). Hippocampi were collected on day 7. Our results show that EE animals had reduced time immobile on the FST across all conditions. After chronic + acute stress EE animals showed increased GR levels with no change in synaptic GluA2/PKMζ. ST-housed animals showed the reverse pattern with decreased GR levels and a significant increase in synaptic GluA2/PKMζ. These results suggest that EE produces an adaptive response to chronic stress allowing for increased GR levels, which lowers neuronal excitability reducing GluA2/PKMζ trafficking. We discuss this EE adaptive response to stress as a potential underlying mechanism that is protective for retaining synaptic plasticity and memory function.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 December 2015.
All research outputs
#14,240,855
of 22,832,057 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
#1,895
of 3,171 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#146,128
of 282,567 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
#54
of 95 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,832,057 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,171 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.4. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 282,567 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 45th percentile – i.e., 45% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 95 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 37th percentile – i.e., 37% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
