RT Journal Article
T1 Environmental enrichment alleviates cognitive and psychomotor alterations and increases adult hippocampal neurogenesis in cocaine withdrawn mice
A1 Mañas-Padilla, María del Carmen
A1 Tezanos, Patricia
A1 Cintado, Elisa
A1 Vicente, Lucía
A1 Sánchez-Salido, Lourdes
A1 Gil-Rodríguez, Sara
A1 Trejo-Pérez, José Luis
A1 Santín-Núñez, Luis Javier
A1 Castilla-Ortega, María Estela
K1 Neurobiología
K1 Neurociencias
K1 Toxicomanía
K1 Cocaína
K1 Hipocampo (Cerebro)
K1 Adicción
AB Cocaine is a widely used psychostimulant drug whose repeated exposure induces persistent cognitive/emotional dysregulation, which could be a predictor of relapse in users. However, there is scarce evidence on effective treatments to alleviate these symptoms. Environmental enrichment (EE) has been shown to be associated with improved synaptic function and cellular plasticity changes related to adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN), resulting in cognitive enhancement. Therefore, EE could mitigate the negative impact of chronic administration of cocaine in mice and reduce the emotional and cognitive symptoms present during cocaine abstinence. In this study, mice were chronically administered with cocaine for 14 days, and control mice received saline. After the last cocaine or saline dose, mice were submitted to control or EE housing conditions, and they stayed undisturbed for 28 days. Subsequently, mice were evaluated with a battery of behavioural tests for exploratory activity, emotional behaviour, and cognitive performance. EE attenuated hyperlocomotion, induced anxiolytic-like behaviour and alleviated cognitive impairment in spatial memory in the cocaine-abstinent mice. The EE protocol notably upregulated AHN in both control and cocaine-treated mice, though cocaine slightly reduced the number of immature neurons. Altogether, these results demonstrate that EE could enhance hippocampal neuroplasticity ameliorating the behavioural and cognitive consequences of repeated administration of cocaine. Therefore, environmental stimulation may be a useful strategy in the treatment cocaine addiction.
PB Wiley
YR 2022
FD 2022-11-16
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/26325
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/26325
LA eng
NO Mañas-Padilla MC, Tezanos P, Cintado E, et al. Environmental enrichment alleviates cognitive and psychomotor alterations and increases adult hippocampal neurogenesis in cocaine withdrawn mice. Addiction Biology. 2023;28(1):e13244. doi:10.1111/adb.13244
NO This study was funded by the following grants: PSI2015-73,156-JIN to E.C-O. and PSI2017-82604R to L.J.S. (MINECO-AEI cofounded by FEDER), PID2020-114374RB-I00 (funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) to E.C-O., PID2020-113806RB-I00 to L.J.S. (MICINN) and University of Malaga (B4: ‘Ayudas para Proyectos Puente’ to E. C–O). Authors M. C. M-P., P. T. and S. G-R. hold predoctoral grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FPU17/00276 to M. C. M-P.; FPU18/00069 to P. T and FPU18/00941 to S. G-R.). The authors acknowledge the IBIMA's common research support structure of animal experimentation and behaviour (“Centro de Experimentación y Conducta Animal”; University of Malaga) and their staff for their valuable assistance during the behavioural experiments and maintenance of the mice and to Belén García and Carmen Hernández for their help with the confocal microscopy at the Cajal Institute //  Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga/CBUA.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 20 ene 2026