A review of the enriched environment and its effects on learning, memory and cognitive disorders

Due to the lack of a definitive treatment to improve human cognitive disorders, researchers have focused on providing new approaches to partially improve or prevent the progression of memory and cognition disorders to reduce the patient's dependency on others. The enriched environment (EE) as a non-pharmacological treatment has drawn attention to improving the living conditions of laboratory animals by increasing social, cognitive, and physical stimuli. This review article discusses how EE affects cognitive disorders and the mechanisms underlying it.

The present study was conducted with the aim of reviewing English articles in the field of EE and their effect on memory and cognitive disorders. The keywords Enriched environment and Memory and Cognitive impairment were searched in the titles and abstracts of articles published in reputable international scientific databases. After several stages of removing duplicate and unrelated items, 69 articles were finally studied in this research.

Enriched environment can improve memory and cognitive processes by creating a set of sensory, motor, social and cognitive stimuli. This improvement may be due to the EE’s different effects on the number of neurons, neurons morphology, myelination, synapses and neurotransmitters, neurotrophic factors and neuro-inflammation.

Considering the role of EE in improving molecular and functional disturbances of the central nervous system in diseases such as depression and stroke, and the potency to reduce the risk of human's dementia; It can be hoped that in the near future, the EE will be used in the treatment of human's neurodegenerative diseases as a suitable and pleasant non-pharmacological therapy.