Can the natural environment enhance developmental plasticity and adult adaptive behavior? Effects of naturalistic rearing environment on gene expression, adult brain organization, and behavior.

自然环境能否增强发育可塑性和成人适应行为？

• 批准号: 10706324
• 负责人: Chris S Bresee
• 金额: $ 7.42万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-13 至 2024-09-12
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10706324
• 关键词: Adaptive Behaviors; Adult; Affect; Animals; Behavior; Behavior assessment; Behavioral; Birth; Body part; Brain; Brain region; Cells; Complex; Data; Development; Discrimination; Electrophysiology (science); Environment; Esthesia; Exposure to; Gene Expression; Genes; Health; Hindlimb; Housing; Human; Investigation; Laboratories; Laboratory Rat; Learning; Life; Life Experience; Link; Literature; Longevity; Mammals; Maps; Measures; Mediating; Modality; Motor; Movement; Nature; Neocortex; Neuroanatomy; Neurologic; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Organism; Parietal Lobe; Pattern; Performance; Phenotype; Population; Property; Rattus; Resources; Sampling; Sensory; Shapes; Siblings; Social Interaction; Somatosensory Cortex; Specific qualifier value; Stimulus; Surface; Tactile; Tail; Techniques; Testing; Texture; Time; Vibrissae; anatomical tracer; behavior test; behavioral outcome; behavioral response; cohort; cortex mapping; critical period; deprivation; developmental plasticity; experience; experimental study; flexibility; improved; learning outcome; motor behavior; multimodality; neocortical; neural; neurodevelopment; novel; receptive field; response; sensory cortex; sensory system; somatosensory; statistics

Project Summary The neocortex is a uniquely mammalian feature, one which facilitates profound behavioral flexibility. Part of this flexibility comes from the capacity of the neocortex to be shaped by early sensory and motor experience, allowing the organism to tune its sensory system to the specific problems and opportunities of the environment in which it is reared. This developmental plasticity allows an animal to then generate adaptive behavior that best meets the variable demands of its environment throughout its life. It has been well established that early sensory experience can alter the sensory or motor representation within a cortical field (cortical maps), neural response properties, and cortical and subcortical connectivity. However, most studies manipulate one particular stimulus in what are necessarily very controlled and restricted environments. Further, it is not known if the differences in the dynamic nature of a given environment (restricted or highly variable) are responsible for brain/behavior alterations early in development, or if a highly dynamic environment can increase the capacity for further change in adult behavior. In the current proposal, we take advantage of a unique resource at UC Davis – field pens located on our Riparian Reserve that are 3,000 times the size of a standard laboratory cage. These field pens provide a highly enriched and dynamic semi-natural environment in which to rear rats. We will quantify tactile natural scene statistics between the semi-natural and laboratory environments, allowing us to quantify differences between the two rearing stimulus conditions, and to subsequently test each group of animals with the full set of stimuli that both groups experienced during development. A number of features of brain organization, gene expression, and behavior will be compared between laboratory rats and rats reared in these semi-natural, highly enriched conditions. While this semi-natural rearing may affect numerous genes, behaviors, and brain regions, we focus on genes associated with cortical development, areal boundary formation, and plasticity. We will sample developing animals to quantify changes in gene expression during critical periods, and relate this expression to adult performance from the same cohort (litttermates) on behaviors that require sensorimotor integration and coordination in adults. We will further quantify neural phenotypes of primary somatosensory cortex (S1), investigating somatotopy, receptive field shape, and cortico-cortical and cortico-thalamic connections. We believe this modality will be highly impacted because the large space available in the field pens will promote active tactile exploration for navigation and social interaction. This is the first study that investigates how early exposure to the rich array of natural stimuli and vastly increased movement options occurring in a natural environment impacts gene expression, neural phenotypes, and behavior.

项目摘要 新皮层是哺乳动物独有的特征，它促进了深刻的行为灵活性。部分 灵活性来自于大脑皮层通过早期感觉和运动经验形成的能力， 使生物体能够调整其感觉系统以适应环境的特定问题和机会 在那里它被饲养。这种发育可塑性使动物产生适应性行为， 最好地满足其整个生命周期中环境的变化需求。据证实， 感觉经验可以改变皮层区域内的感觉或运动表征（皮层地图），神经 反应特性，以及皮层和皮层下的连通性。然而，大多数研究操纵一个 特别的刺激在什么是必要的非常控制和限制的环境。此外，还不知道 如果给定环境的动态性质的差异（受限或高度可变）是导致 大脑/行为在发育早期的改变，或者如果一个高度动态的环境可以增加能力， 成年人行为的进一步改变。在目前的提案中，我们利用了UC的独特资源 戴维斯-野外围栏位于我们的河岸保护区，是标准实验室笼子的3,000倍。 这些野外围栏提供了一个高度丰富和动态的半自然环境，在其中饲养大鼠。我们将 量化半自然和实验室环境之间的触觉自然场景统计，使我们能够 量化两种饲养刺激条件之间的差异，并随后测试每组 两组动物在发育过程中经历的全套刺激。的多个特征 将在实验室大鼠和环境中饲养的大鼠之间比较大脑组织、基因表达和行为。 这些半天然的，高浓度的环境虽然这种半自然的饲养可能会影响许多基因， 行为和大脑区域，我们专注于与皮质发育，区域边界， 形成和可塑性。我们将对发育中的动物进行采样，以量化基因表达的变化， 关键时期，并将此表达与同一队列（litttermates）的成年表现联系起来， 成年人需要感觉运动整合和协调的行为。我们将进一步量化神经 初级躯体感觉皮层（S1）的表型，研究躯体适应性，感受野形状， 皮质-皮质和皮质-丘脑连接。我们认为这种模式将受到很大影响，因为 野外围栏中的大空间将促进主动触觉探索，用于导航和社交 互动这是第一项研究，调查如何早期暴露于丰富的自然刺激， 在自然环境中大量增加的运动选择会影响基因表达，神经元， 表型和行为。