Visual input is necessary to achieve retinal neuroprotection in an enriched environment

DORFMAN D; GONZÁLEZ FLEITAS MF; ARANDA ML; MIRANDA M; ROSENSTEIN RE

Mar del Plata

Congreso; XXX Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2015

Enriched environment (EE) is defined as a complex combination of inanimate and social interaction. In EE, several animals are housed in big cages, with frequently changing objects, thus stimulating exploratory conduct, voluntary physical exercise, enhanced visual and cognitive functions, and social interaction. However, the relative contribution of each of these components to the effects of EE is still controversial. Different groups have described the effects of the environment on visual plasticity during development. However, up to now, there was no information on the effect of the environment on the retina of adult animals, originally considered a non-plastic tissue. For the first time, we have shown that the exposure to EE protects the retinal function and histology from acute unilateral retinal ischemia and diabetic retinopathy in adult rats. Then, we aimed to dissect the contribution of social, motor and visual stimuli to the neuroprotection induced by EE. When ischemia was bilaterally induced, the protection triggered by EE was abolished, suggesting that the visual input, likely regardless of social and/or motor components, was a necessary condition within EE to achieve retinal neuroprotection. These results suggest that, at least for the visual pathway, visual stimuli and, probably, its central processing, could account for the retinal neuroprotection induced by EE, which could become the first evidence of the visual contribution in the protective effects of EE.