Lett, G. S. 2011. The beneficial effects of enrichment on diabetic mice. Enrichment Record 6, 5.

In the last issue of The Enrichment Record, Emily Patterson-Kane and I reported on the work (Cao, Liu et al.) in which investigators demonstrated that even short-term exposure to environmental enrichment (EE) improved resistance to cancer in a number of mouse models. The authors also measured specific physiological changes in the EE mice that led to improved cancer resistance. Now, it appears that short term exposure—ten days—to EE effect measurable physiological changes associated with improved cognitive function and memory in the diabetic mice. Type 1 diabetes has been associated with a number of brain disturbances in human patients. Pathological hippocampal changes and cognitive deficits have been observed in animal models of diabetes. In the November 2010 issue of PLoS ONE, Beauquis, Roig et al. studied the modulation of the physiological changes by environmental enrichment in a Type 1 diabetes mouse model. Beauquis et al. studied a widely-used mouse diabetes model, in which diabetes is induced using streptozotocin. Equal numbers of diabetes-induced mice were assigned to standard conditions (SC) and enriched conditions (EC) for ten days. The EC cages were larger, had more nesting material, and a variety of toys, small plastic houses and tubes that were rearranged every two days. Similar numbers of control (non-diabetic) mice were also assigned to SC and EC. They then measured a number of physiological changes in hippocampal neurons that have been associated with aging and stress in humans as well More Research Results as cognitive and memory changes in diabetic mice. These changes were measured using immunohistochemistry techniques on brain tissue sections.