While it has been well established for about fifteen years that an enriched lifestyle can delay cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, the neural mechanisms involved have remained to be discovered. Laure Verret and her colleagues Guillaume Bouisset, Fanny Tixier, Tatiana Dupak and Camille Lejards (CRCA-CBI) have recently shown that environmental enrichment preserves memory in mice with the disease by inducing lasting changes in a neuronal population in the hippocampus.
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterised by progressive deterioration of cognitive functions such as memory, or language. Epidemiological studies have shown that certain social, sensory and intellectual activities can delay the onset of symptoms. This is known as “cognitive reserve”, or the brain’s ability to mobilise resources to compensate for the effects of the disease. The existence of this cognitive reserve is well established, but its neurobiological basis has remained unknown until now.
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