ENVIRONMENTAL ENRICHMENT IMPROVES NEUROCOGNITION AND BEHAVIOR IN A MURINE MODEL OF CHRONIC TOXOPLASMOSIS

FLORENCIA ANDRÉS; MATÍAS PERRONE SIBILIA; NADIA ARCON; LAURA FURLAN; IGNACIO FENOY; ALEJANDRA GOLDMAN; NADIA JUSTEL; VALENTINA MARTIN; VANESA SÁNCHEZ

Congreso; REUNIÓN DE SOCIEDADES DE BIOCIENCIAS 2021; 2021

Currently, accumulated evidence links T. gondii chronic infection with different pathologies, including neurocognitive and behavioral conditions. There are no treatments able to eliminate the parasite at this stage or to reduce the adverse effects associated with the infection. Herein, we study the effect of a non-invasive therapy based on environmental enrichment (EE) on brain parasite load and the damaging effects of infection.METHODS: The EE therapy involves increasing the available space and the addition of novel elements in the habitat. Chronically infected treated (TE), untreated (T) and naive (N) C57BL/6 mice were used to evaluate different abilities by the Open Field (OF), Hole Board (HB), Forced Swim (FS) and Novel Object Recognition (NOR) tests. Data was analyzed using ANOVA test. Brain cyst burden was evaluated at the end.RESULTS: OF results evidence that the EE treatment on infected mice improved its exploratory ability measured as crossed lines (TE vs T p=0,0059) and rearings (TE vs T p=0,008), leading to similar levels than the N mice. We confirmed this result with the HB, where TE showed a 2,1-fold increase in nose poke behavior than the T group, reaching similar records to N (TE vs T p=0,007). The positive impact of the therapy was also exposed in the memory-learning abilities, measured by NOR, since TE showed higher identification index compared to T and similar performance to N (TE vs T p=0,0014). Also, the EE improved the TE response to stressful situations previously experienced as measured by the FS (TE vs T p=0,0014), with similar results to N. Nevertheless, brain parasite load was similar in TE and T groups.CONCLUSIONS: This environmental enrichment therapy showed a positive impact in all the studied skills, showing its potential to deal with the harmful effects of chronic Toxoplasmosis, improving well-being of the affected individuals. This type of non- Invasive therapy could be easily incorporated into translational medicine approaches.