A suitable enriched environment favors development but can also influence behavior and neuronal circuits throughout development. Studies have shown that environmental enrichment (EE) can be used as an essential tool or combined with conventional treatments to improve psychiatric and neurological symptoms, including major depressive disorder (MDD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both disorders affect a significant percentage of the wofrld's population and have complex pathophysiology. Moreover, the available treatments for MDD and ASD are still inadequate for many affected individuals. Experimental models demonstrate that EE has significant positive effects on behavioral modulation. In addition, EE has effects on neurobiology, including improvement in synaptic connections and neuroplasticity, modulation of neurotransmissions, a decrease in inflammation and oxidative stress, and other neurobiology effects that can be involved in the pathophysiology of MDD and ASD. Thus, this review aims to describe the leading behavioral and neurobiological effects associated with EE in MDD and ASD.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2022.09.024 | DOI Listing |
Curr Issues Mol Biol
November 2024
Systems Biology Unit, Department of Experimental Biology, Faculty of Experimental Sciences, University of Jaén, 23071 Jaén, Spain.
Neurological disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Schizophrenia (SCH), Bipolar Disorder (BD), and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) affect millions of people worldwide, yet their molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study describes the application of the Comparative Analysis of Shapley values (CASh) to transcriptomic data from nine datasets associated with these complex disorders, demonstrating its effectiveness in identifying differentially expressed genes (DEGs). CASh, which combines Game Theory with Bootstrap resampling, offers a robust alternative to traditional statistical methods by assessing the contribution of each gene in the broader context of the complete dataset.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Affect Disord
December 2024
Department of Sleep and Psychology, Chongqing Health Center for Women and Children, Chongqing 401147, China; Department of Sleep and Psychology, Women and Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, 401147, China. Electronic address:
Background: Maternal smoking around birth (MSAB) and early-life breastfeeding (BAB) represent critical factors that may exert enduring effects on neuropsychiatric health. Although previous research has examined these exposures separately, the combined impact of both on disorders such as ADHD, ASD, BD, MDD, ANX, and SCZ remains unclear. This study aims to evaluate the causal relationships between MSAB and BAB and the risk of developing these neuropsychiatric disorders through Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Psychiatry
December 2024
Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University and Tays Cancer Centre, Tampere, Finland.
Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a partially heritable neurodevelopmental trait, and people with ASD may also have other co-occurring trait such as ADHD, anxiety disorders, depression, mental health issues, learning difficulty, physical health traits and communication challenges. The concomitant development of ASD and other neurological traits is assumed to result from a complex interplay between genetics and the environment. However, only a limited number of studies have performed multivariate genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for ASD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBr J Psychiatry
December 2024
IMPACT, the Institute for Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Translation, Food & Mood Centre, School of Medicine, Barwon Health, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.
Background: The prenatal and early-life periods pose a crucial neurodevelopmental window whereby disruptions to the intestinal microbiota and the developing brain may have adverse impacts. As antibiotics affect the human intestinal microbiome, it follows that early-life antibiotic exposure may be associated with later-life psychiatric or neurocognitive outcomes.
Aims: To explore the association between early-life (in utero and early childhood (age 0-2 years)) antibiotic exposure and the subsequent risk of psychiatric and neurocognitive outcomes.
Front Psychiatry
November 2024
Department of Neurology, Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, Frontiers Science Center for Disease-related Molecular Network, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Background: Growing evidence suggests that chronic inflammation, resulting from intricate immune system interactions, significantly contributes to the onset of psychiatric disorders. Observational studies have identified a link between immunoglobulin G (IgG) N-glycosylation and various psychiatric conditions, but the causality of these associations remains unclear.
Methods: Genetic variants for IgG N-glycosylation traits and psychiatric disorders were obtained from published genome-wide association studies.
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