Environmental enrichment and working memory tasks decrease hippocampal cell proliferation after wheel running – A role for the prefrontal cortex in hippocampal plasticity?

Abstract

Despite an increasing amount of evidence about the regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis on the local level, less attention has been paid to its systemic embedding in wider brain circuits. The aim of the present study was to obtain evidence for a potential role of the prefrontal cortex in the regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis. We hypothesised that activation of the prefrontal cortex by environmental enrichment or a working-memory task would decrease previously enhanced cell proliferation rates. Wheel running was applied as a common stimulator of cell proliferation in CD1 mice reared under deprivation of natural environmental stimulation. Next, the animals were assigned to four groups for different treatments in the following three days: housing under continued deprivation, environmental enrichment, a spatial-delayed alternation task in an automated T-maze that activates the prefrontal cortex by working-memory requirements or a control task in the automated T-maze differing only in the single parameter working-memory-associated delay. Both the environmental enrichment and spatial-delayed alternation tasks decreased cell proliferation rates in the dentate gyrus compared to deprived housing and the control task in the T-maze. As the control animals underwent the same procedures and stressors and differed only in the single parameter working-memory-associated delay, the working-memory requirement seems to be the crucial factor for decreasing cell proliferation rates. Taken together, these results suggest that the prefrontal cortex may play a role in the regulation of hippocampal cell proliferation.