Captivity reduces hippocampal volume but not survival of new cells in a food-storing bird.

In many naturalistic studies of the hippocampus wild animals are held in captivity. To test if captivity itself affects hippocampal integrity, adult black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilla) were caught in the fall, injected with bromodeoxyuridine to mark neurogenesis, and alternately released to the wild or held in captivity. The wild birds were recaptured after 4-6 weeks and perfused simultaneously with their captive counterparts.

Voluntary running distance is negatively correlated with striatal dopamine release in untrained rats.

This study examined the relationship between voluntary running distance and glutamate- and K+-stimulated dopamine release in the striatum (nucleus accumbens and caudate-putamen) of male Long-Evans rats. Twenty-one rats were housed individually in cages with attached running-wheels for 1 week. There was a 19-fold variability between rats in voluntary running distances over this period (range = 2.