ArticleScience advances2020
Early-life environmental enrichment generates persistent individualized behavior in mice.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Environmental enrichment: a systematic review on the effect of a changing spatial complexity on hippocampal neurogenesis and plasticity in rodents, with considerations for translation to urban and built environments for humans.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- Adult hippocampal neurogenesis shapes ideomotor action control in mice.Communications biology · 2026Article
- New neurons flatten social hierarchies.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Heads and tails of individual differences: the role of environmental complexity in cognitive development of juvenile lobsters.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Lifestyle shapes preclinical social and microglial deficits in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Adult neurogenesis: New neurons, new opportunities.Cell stem cell · 2026Review
- Developmental Behavioural Plasticity and DNA Methylation Patterns in Response to Predation Stress in Trinidadian Guppies.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Predator cues and environmental complexity shape the behaviour and life history of juvenile lobsters (Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Sources of behavioral variability in C. elegans: Sex differences, individuality, and internal states.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2025Review
- Article
- Relationship between enriched environment and neurodegeneration: a review from mechanism to therapy.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Review
- Beyond nature, nurture, and chance: Individual agency shapes divergent learning biographies and brain connectome.Science advances · 2025Article
- Review
- Competitive social feedback amplifies the role of early life contingency in male mice.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Environmental complexity modulates information processing and the balance between decision-making systems.Neuron · 2024Article
- Targeting neuronal epigenomes for brain rejuvenation.The EMBO journal · 2024Review
- Sex-specific competitive social feedback amplifies the role of early life contingency in male mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Female behavior drives the formation of distinct social structures in C57BL/6J versus wild-derived outbred mice in field enclosures.BMC biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Re-wilding model organisms: Opportunities to test causal mechanisms in social determinants of health and aging.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Individuals differ in their response to environmental stimuli, but the stability of individualized behaviors and their associated changes in brain plasticity are poorly understood. We developed a novel model of enriched environment to longitudinally monitor 40 inbred mice exploring 35 connected cages over periods of 3 to 6 months. We show that behavioral individuality that emerged during the first 3 months of environmental enrichment persisted when mice were withdrawn from the enriched environment for 3 additional months. Behavioral trajectories were associated with stable interindividual differences in adult hippocampal neurogenesis and persistent epigenetic effects on neuronal plasticity genes in the hippocampus. Using genome-wide DNA methylation sequencing, we show that one-third of the DNA methylation changes were maintained after withdrawal from the enriched environment. Our results suggest that, even under conditions that control genetic background and shared environment, early-life experiences result in lasting individualized changes in behavior, brain plasticity, and epigenetics.
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Registered trials
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.