Review: Environmental enrichment and brain repair: harnessing the therapeutic effects of cognitive stimulation and physical activity to enhance experience‐dependent plasticity
Abstract
Environmental enrichment (EE) increases levels of novelty and complexity, inducing enhanced sensory, cognitive and motor stimulation. In wild-type rodents, EE has been found to have a range of effects, such as enhancing experience-dependent cellular plasticity and cognitive performance, relative to standard-housed controls. Whilst environmental enrichment is of course a relative term, dependent on the nature of control environmental conditions, epidemiological studies suggest that EE has direct clinical relevance to a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders. EE has been demonstrated to induce beneficial effects in animal models of a wide variety of brain disorders. The first evidence of beneficial effects of EE in a genetically targeted animal model was generated using Huntington's disease transgenic mice. Subsequent studies found that EE was also therapeutic in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease, consistent with epidemiological studies of relevant environmental modifiers. EE has also been found to ameliorate behavioural, cellular and molecular deficits in animal models of various neurological and psychiatric disorders, including Parkinson's disease, stroke, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, depression, schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. This review will focus on the effects of EE observed in animal models of neurodegenerative brain diseases, at molecular, cellular and behavioural levels. The proposal that EE may act synergistically with…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Environmental enrichment modifies the pathology of neurological disorders.
“Environmental enrichment | Reduces anxiety [196,197], stress [196,197], and abnormal repetitive behaviour [198–200]. Reduces susceptibility to epilepsy [201] and osteoarthritis [202] and modifies the pathology of neurological disorders [203]. Increases foraging behaviour in fish [204].”
From Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (2020) · cites this paper as [203]
Cites
Running increases cell proliferation and neurogenesis in the adult mouse dentate gyrus
van Praag, H., Kempermann, G., & Gage, F. H. (1999) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/6368 · Cited by 3,880 · see citing works
Cognitive reserve in ageing and Alzheimer's disease
Stern, Y. (2012) · The Lancet Neurology · doi:10.1016/s1474-4422(12)70191-6 · Cited by 3,557 · see citing works
Neural consequences of enviromental enrichment
van Praag, H., Kempermann, G., & Gage, F. H. (2000) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/35044558 · Cited by 2,468 · see citing works
Nibuya, M., Morinobu, S., & Duman, R. (1995) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.15-11-07539.1995 · Cited by 2,109 · see citing works
Enriched environments, experience-dependent plasticity and disorders of the nervous system
Nithianantharajah, J., & Hannan, A. J. (2006) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn1970 · Cited by 1,771 · see citing works
Self-citationHistone deacetylase inhibitors arrest polyglutamine-dependent neurodegeneration in Drosophila
Steffan, J. S., Bodai, L., Pallos, J., Poelman, M., McCampbell, A., Apostol, B. L., Kazantsev, A., Schmidt, E., Zhu, Y.-Z., Greenwald, M., et al. (2001) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35099568 · Cited by 1,228 · see citing works
Exercise and brain neurotrophins
Neeper, S. A., Góauctemez-Pinilla, F., Choi, J., & Cotman, C. (1995) · Nature · doi:10.1038/373109a0 · Cited by 1,066 · see citing works
Environmental Enrichment Reverses the Effects of Maternal Separation on Stress Reactivity
Francis, D. D., Diorio, J., Plotsky, P. M., & Meaney, M. J. (2002) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.22-18-07840.2002 · Cited by 663 · see citing works
Environmental Enrichment Mitigates Cognitive Deficits in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease
Jankowsky, J. L., Melnikova, T., Fadale, D. J., Xu, G. M., Slunt, H. H., Gonzales, V., Younkin, L. H., Younkin, S. G., Borchelt, D. R., & Savonenko, A. V. (2005) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.5080-04.2005 · Cited by 517 · see citing works
Green, K. N., Steffan, J. S., Martinez-Coria, H., Sun, X., Schreiber, S. S., Thompson, L. M., & LaFerla, F. M. (2008) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.3203-08.2008 · Cited by 404 · see citing works
Laviola, G., Hannan, A. J., Macrì, S., Solinas, M., & Jaber, M. (2008) · Neurobiology of Disease · doi:10.1016/j.nbd.2008.05.001 · Cited by 300 · see citing works
Self-citationWolf, S. A., Kronenberg, G., Lehmann, K., Blankenship, A., Overall, R., Staufenbiel, M., & Kempermann, G. (2006) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.04.004 · Cited by 288 · see citing works
Bredy, T. W., Zhang, T. Y., Grant, R. J., Diorio, J., & Meaney, M. J. (2004) · European Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2004.03599.x · Cited by 196 · see citing works
Cognitive disorders and neurogenesis deficits in Huntington’s disease mice are rescued by fluoxetine
Grote, H. E., Bull, N. D., Howard, M. L., Van Dellen, A., Blakemore, C., Bartlett, P. F., & Hannan, A. J. (2005) · European Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2005.04365.x · Cited by 179 · see citing works
Self-citationNELSON, R., GUO, Z., HALAGAPPA, V, PEARSON, M., GRAY, A., MATSUOKA, Y., BROWN, M., MARTIN, B., IYUN, T., & MAUDSLEY, S. (2007) · Experimental Neurology · doi:10.1016/j.expneurol.2007.01.037 · Cited by 173 · see citing works
Pothakos, K., Kurz, M. J., & Lau, Y.-S. (2009) · BMC Neuroscience · doi:10.1186/1471-2202-10-6 · Cited by 134 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0
Percie du Sert, N., Ahluwalia, A., Alam, S., Avey, M. T., Baker, M., Browne, W. J., Clark, A., Cuthill, I. C., Dirnagl, U., Emerson, M., et al. (2020) · PLOS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000411 · Cited by 2,677 · see citing works
Deidda, G., Bozarth, I. F., & Cancedda, L. (2014) · Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fncel.2014.00119 · Cited by 192 · see citing works
Cellular and molecular mechanisms of immunomodulation in the brain through environmental enrichment
Singhal, G., Jaehne, E. J., Corrigan, F., & Baune, B. T. (2014) · Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fncel.2014.00097 · Cited by 186 · see citing works
Potential of Environmental Enrichment to Prevent Transgenerational Effects of Paternal Trauma
Gapp, K., Bohacek, J., Grossmann, J., Brunner, A. M., Manuella, F., Nanni, P., & Mansuy, I. M. (2016) · Neuropsychopharmacology · doi:10.1038/npp.2016.87 · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Yeshurun, S., & Hannan, A. J. (2019) · Molecular Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/s41380-018-0039-z · Cited by 121 · see citing works
Self-citationEnvironmental enrichment is associated with rapid volumetric brain changes in adult mice
Scholz, J., Allemang-Grand, R., Dazai, J., & Lerch, J. P. (2015) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.01.027 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Tang, Y.-F., Duan, Y.-J., Ge, R.-D., Lu, X., Gao, B.-Y., Guo, J.-W., & Jiang, S. (2022) · Journal of Integrative Neuroscience · doi:10.31083/j.jin2201005 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hannan, A. J.
- Affiliations
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Hannan, A. J.
- ORCID
- Hannan, A. J.
- Venue
- Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-01-20
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 13-25
- ISSN
- 0305-1846 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-2990
- OpenAlex
- W1593010045
- Cited by
- 240
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 8
- FWCI
- 1.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Developmental Neuroscience › Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- environmental enrichment, experience-dependent plasticity, brain repair, cognitive stimulation, physical activity, neurodegenerative diseases, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, stroke, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, depression, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, neuroprotection
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cognition, Disease Models, Animal, Environment, Neuronal Plasticity, Physical Conditioning, Animal, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Mice, Rats
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
