BRAIN STUDY
Nurturing improves memory
February 4, 2009
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Trish Crawford
LIVING REPORTER
Giving young girls a stimulating environment may one day affect their children's brain power, says a report in today's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
Study author Dean Hartley, associate professor of neurological sciences at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, says that providing an enriched atmosphere for mice – coloured balls, toys and a running wheel – helped them overcome a genetically created defect in memory.
Hartley points out that this adds weight to the "nurture" side of the nature-versus-nurture debate. It is not just our genetic structure but also our environment which shapes us, he says, and even a pre-existing intellectual deficit can be overcome.
What startled researchers, he says, is that the "rescue effect" was passed on to the next generation.
Researchers followed the offspring of these mice and discovered they too had improved memories without having had enriched environments themselves, although their babies did not.
"Environmental enrichment during youth has dramatic additional powers," Hartley says.
To make sure the baby mice weren't just benefiting from improved parenting by the enriched mothers, some were raised by foster parents. They continued to show improved memories.
"We know that what a mother does during pregnancy affects her baby but it seems that what she does pre-pregnancy can have a beneficial effect," says Hartley.
Researchers, who are using these studies to devise treatment programs for Alzheimer's patients, have also discovered swimming and other forms of exercise helped the mice overcome the memory defect.
However, their offspring have not yet been studied to see if this trait was passed on.
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