The exposure to enriched environment prevents retinal ischemic damage

GONZÁLEZ FLEITAS MF; DORFMAN D; ROSENSTEIN RE

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

schemia is a key component of several retinal diseases that are leading causes of irreversible blindness. At present, there are no effective strategies to prevent retinal ischemic damage. We have demonstrated that the exposure to an enriched environment (EE) after retinal ischemia reduces functional and histological alterations induced by ischemia. EE constitutes a strategy that boosts exploratory, visual, and cognitive activities, social interaction and voluntary physical exercise. In this context, the aim of the present work was to analyze the effect of EE housing before acute retinal ischemia damage. For this purpose, adult male Wistar rats were exposed to standard environment (SE) or EE for 3 weeks before retinal ischemia. EE consisted of big cages housing 6 animals and containing several food hoppers, wheels and different objects repositioned once/day and fully substituted once/week. Ischemia was induced by increasing intraocular pressure to 120 mm Hg for 40 min. After ischemia, both groups were housed in SE for 3 weeks, and subjected to electroretinography (electroretinogram, ERG) and histological analysis. In animals previously housed in SE, ischemia induced a significant decrease in ERG a- and b- wave amplitude, and retinal ganglion cell (RCG) loss, whereas the exposure to EE significantly prevented these alterations. These results suggest that the EE housing, a non-invasive strategy, could reduce retinal vulnerability to ischemic damage.