Abstract
Pregnant and nonpregnant Long—Evans female rats were placed in enriched, standard colony, and impoverished environmental conditions (comparisons were made among sextuplets). Cerebral cortical depth measurements of the non-pregnant rats supported previous findings that the somesthetic and occipital areas of the environmentally enriched rat are thicker than those of the environmentally impoverished nonpregnant rat. Pregnancy altered the response to these differential environments by increasing the cerebral cortical depth of the pregnant animals, particularly those in the impoverished condition. However, a significant overall effect of an enriched environment occurred in the pregnant rats as well. The present experiment indicates that cerebral cortical chemistry and morphology can be altered depending on the environmental conditions, sex, and hormonal state of the animal. If the mechanisms which cause the brain to function are ever to be understood, all variables should be taken into consideration.
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