The Effects of Enriched Environment on Substantia nigra Tissue in Parkinson’s Disease Rats with Prenatal Stress

  Prenatal stress causes brain alteration and long-term effects on its structure and function. Parkinson's is a progressive neurodegenerative disease and one of the factors driving Parkinson's is the prenatal stress. The use of enrichment environments is a good way to prevent this disease. This survey has been done due to studying the measurement of environmental enrichment effectiveness on Substantia nigra tissue in rats who are suffering from Parkinson's disease and have prenatal stress.

A Laboratory research method was used .We divided 48 Wistar male rats who had been affected by prenatal stress and enriched environment, to 8 groups with 6 members; with stress (Control, sham, Parkinson, Parkinson + enrichment) and without stress (Control, sham, Parkinson, Parkinson + enrichment).
After eight weeks, we anaesthetized all the rats by the use of Ketamine and Xylasein and then injected 6mg of 6OHDA within %0/9 salt solotion of Ascorbic Acid in to the brains of the rats by Stereotaxic Surgery, and after 3 weeks the signs of Parkinson's disease became confirm by Apomorphin Test. Then we emit brains of the rats from their skulls, and after tissue process, cutting and painting, we calculated the numbers neurons by use of microscope and then the data were analyzed by One-Way ANOVA and Tukey's Post Test.

The findings showed that environmental enrichment did not completely prevent the destruction of Substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons, but the number of Substantia nigra neurons in the environmental enrichment group was significantly higher than that of the Parkinsonian group of degeneration with neurotoxin.(P≤0.001) Environmental enrichment also prevented the destructive effect of perinatal stress on the reduction of the number of Substantia nigra neurons and behavioral tests.(P <0.001)

Discussion & The results show the beneficial effects of enrichment in the protection of the number of more Substantia nigra neurons and suggests that enriched environmental conditions can be used as a beneficial factor in reducing the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson's disease Reducing the effect of prenatal stress is effective.