How does environmental enrichment aid performance following cortical injury in the rat?

No evidence is found that postoperative EC helped lesioned rats to switch to non-visual cues when visual cues were unavailable, and Finger's hypothesis that EC increases the animal's ability to switchto alternative cues when brain damage renders the cues normally used in performing the task less salient or unavailable is tested.

Abstract

Understanding how postoperative environmental brain damage in animals may help in devising treatment regimes for brain injured humans. This study tests Finger's hypothesis that EC increases the animal's ability to switch to alternative cues when brain damage renders the cues normally used in performing the task less salient or unavailable. Following preoperative water maze training to visual cues, rats were given either bilateral occipital lesions or sham operations, housed in either EC or standard conditions and then tested in the water maze in alternating visual and non-visual cue conditions. We found no evidence that postoperative EC helped lesioned rats to switch to non-visual cues when visual cues were unavailable.