Experience modulates brain plasticity in adult primates

描述(申请人提供)：先前对啮齿动物的研究表明，生活在不暴露于环境复杂性的环境中会导致大脑的生理变化，这会带来沉重的功能成本。与老鼠相比，非人灵长类具有复杂的社会行为和认知能力。它们以错综复杂的方式与环境相互作用，因此可能对环境有更高的要求，以实现最佳功能。把猴子关在标准的实验室笼子里，对它们大脑的负面影响可能比我之前在大鼠身上发现的神经元存活率下降更大。我们的实验室已经建造了一个新的绒猴设施，我在未来几年的总体意图是描述经验对成年绒猴神经发生和树突结构的影响。拟议中的实验将把这种物种大脑可塑性的几个指数与环境复杂性的水平联系起来，并确定影响是否分级。如果生活在丰富的环境中会改变成年绒猴的大脑结构，那么就会确定造成这种影响的个体变量。这项工作将开始表征生活在不同环境中对成年灵长类动物结构可塑性的影响，并将为在实验室条件下研究动物而不受不同住所的潜在混乱奠定基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Prior research in rodents suggests that living without exposure to environmental complexity leads to physiological changes in the brain that carry heavy functional costs. In comparison to rats, non-human primates are characterized by complex social behavior and cognitive capacity. They interact with their environment in intricate ways and are therefore likely to have greater requirements with respect to environment for optimal functioning. Housing monkeys in standard laboratory cages may have an even greater negative impact on their brain than the decreased neuronal survival shown by my prior work in rats. Our laboratory has built a new marmoset facility and my general intent for the next several years is to characterize experiential influences on neurogenesis and dendritic architecture in adult marmosets. The proposed experiments will correlate several indices of brain plasticity in this species with the level of environmental complexity and determine whether the effect is graded. If living in an enriched environment alters brain structure in the adult marmoset, then individual variables responsible for the effect will be identified. This work will begin to characterize the effects of living in different environments on structural plasticity in adult primates, and it will create the basis for studying animals in laboratory conditions that are free of the potential confounds of variable housing.