The Impact of Cognitive and Physical Enrichment on Contextual Fear Memory Retention the Contribution of Oligodendrogenesis and Myelination
Year: 2021
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Memories are encoded in patterns of neural activity deemed “engrams” and are recalled when this network is reactivated. Physical and cognitive enrichment have been shown to increase neurogenesis and myelinogenesis which can alter the stability of the engram. We housed mice in both physical enrichment and a combination of physical plus cognitive enrichment and found that both caused forgetting of a contextual fear memory if housing occurred after conditioning, but improved memory recall if done beforehand. However, combining physical and cognitive enrichment caused a greater change in freezing behaviour relative to physical enrichment alone, only when housing was done after conditioning. Mice in which oligodendrogenesis was halted exhibited a trend of freezing less than mice with functioning oligodendrocytes regardless of enrichment, though this was not considered statistically significant. These results are consistent with the theory that enrichment exerts its effect on memory retention by altering engram stabilization during memory consolidation.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Jordan James Mak
Language: English
Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3186636796