ENRICHED ENVIRONMENT PRESERVES THE VISUAL FUNCTIONS AND REDUCES THE STRUCTURAL DAMAGE OF THE OPTIC NERVE IN AN EXPERIMENTAL MODEL OF OPTIC NEURITIS

GONZÁLEZ FLEITAS MF; DEVOUASSOUX JD; SANDE PH; DIEGUEZ HH; KELLER SARMIENTO MI; DORFMAN D; ARANDA ML; MILNE GA; CHIANELLI MS; ROSENSTEIN RE

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Reunión Conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias; 2017

SAIC, SAIB, SAI, SAA, SAB, SAB, SAFE, SAFIS, SAH, SAP

The therapeutic potential of enriched environment (EE) againstdamage induced by neuroinflammation has been scarcely studied.Optic neuritis (ON) is an inflammatory, demyelinating andneurodegenerative disease of the optic nerve that can cause irreversibleblindness. We studied the effect of EE housing on visualpathway damage induced by experimental ON. Vehicle or LPSwere micro-injected into the optic nerve of adult male Wistar rats.After injection, one group of animals was housed in EE and anothergroup remained in standard laboratory cages (SE) for 21 days.EE prevented ON-induced decrease in consensual pupillary reflex(PR), visual evoked potential amplitude, and anterograde transport.Moreover, EE prevented the decrease in phosphorylated neurofilament-immunoreactivity, microglial reactivity and astrocytosis, andreduced demyelination and prevented retinal ganglion cell and axonloss induced by LPS injection (p