Environmental Enrichment and Neurodevelopment

Researchers working on this project want to see if they can correct mistakes that occur during neurodevelopment. Because of this, they made an experiment with mice that have genetic disorders that influence how their neurons connect. That is, they want to see if they can stimulate miss-mapped neurons in the visual pathway of the brain.

For the purpose of the experiment, the mice were in containers where they had a lot of visual stimuli. Furthermore, environment enrichment was put in the container in different phases of the mice’s cognitive development.

The results of the experiment show that environmental enrichment can correct neural mapping. However, this change happens only in young mice that receive stimulation in the early phases of brain development. As for the older mice, the same stimulation had no effect at all.

Researchers working on this study believe that the findings may help us in the treatment of human neural disorders. That is, they believe that the right external stimulation can have a positive impact on neural mapping.

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