Age effects on the regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis by physical activity and environmental enrichment in the APP23 mouse model of Alzheimer disease.

An active lifestyle is to some degree protective against Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the biological basis for this benefit is still far from clear. We hypothesize that physical and cognitive activity increase a reserve for plasticity by increasing adult neurogenesis in the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG). We thus assessed how age affects the response to activity in the murine APP23 model of AD compared with wild type (WT) controls and studied the effects of physical exercise (RUN) and environmental enrichment (ENR) in comparison with standard housing (CTR) at two different ages (6 months and 18 months) and in both genotypes.

Prenatal ethanol exposure reduces the expression of the transcriptional factor Pax6 in the developing rat brain.

Prenatal ethanol exposure (PEE) induces functional and structural disorders in the developing central nervous system (CNS). The relationship between radial glial cells (RGCs) and migrating neuroblasts is crucial for the establishment of normal CNS laminated structures. Pax6, a transcription factor involved in mammalian neuronal developmental processes, could be affected by PEE, as it is already known to occur in amphibians.

A low chronic ethanol exposure induces morphological changes in the adolescent rat brain that are not fully recovered even after a long abstinence: an immunohistochemical study.

Little is known about the morphological effects of alcoholism on the developing adolescent brain and its consequences into adulthood. We studied here the relationship between two neurotransmitter systems (the serotoninergic and nitrergic) and the astrocytic and neuronal cytoskeleton immediately and long after drinking cessation of a chronic, but low, ethanol administration. Adolescent male Wistar rats were exposed to ethanol 6.