Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27536216›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in molecular neuroscience2016

Effects of Long-Term Environmental Enrichment on Anxiety, Memory, Hippocampal Plasticity and Overall Brain Gene Expression in C57BL6 Mice.

Melanie Hüttenrauch, Gabriela Salinas, Oliver Wirths

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in molecular neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 62 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
62citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

62 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Trial
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Refining In-Cage Enrichment for Specialized Mouse Scenarios.Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2025
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Therapeutic modulation of neurogenesis to improve hippocampal plasticity and cognition in aging and Alzheimer's disease.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025
    Review
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Neurosustainability.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  20. Article

2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Melanie HüttenrauchDivision of Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany.
Gabriela SalinasDepartment of Developmental Biochemistry, DNA Microarray and Deep-Sequencing Facility, University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany.
Oliver WirthsDivision of Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

There is ample evidence that physical activity exerts positive effects on a variety of brain functions by facilitating neuroprotective processes and influencing neuroplasticity. Accordingly, numerous studies have shown that continuous exercise can successfully diminish or prevent the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease in transgenic mouse models. However, the long-term effect of physical activity on brain health of aging wild-type (WT) mice has not yet been studied in detail. Here, we show that prolonged physical and cognitive stimulation, mediated by an enriched environment (EE) paradigm for a duration of 11 months, leads to reduced anxiety and improved spatial reference memory in C57BL6 WT mice. While the number of CA1 pyramidal neurons remained unchanged between standard housed (SH) and EE mice, the number of dentate gyrus (DG) neurons, as well as the CA1 and DG volume were significantly increased in EE mice. A whole-brain deep sequencing transcriptome analysis, carried out to better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the observed effects, revealed an up-regulation of a variety of genes upon EE, mainly associated with synaptic plasticity and transcription regulation. The present findings corroborate the impact of continuous physical activity as a potential prospective route in the prevention of age-related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disorders.

Indexed as

deep sequencingdentate gyrusenriched environmenthippocampal plasticityMorris water mazeneurogenesisphysical activitystereology

Identifiers

PMID27536216
PMCPMC4971077

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.