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  • Review Article
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The influence of environment and experience on neural grafts

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 2, pages 871–879 (2001)Cite this article

Key Points

  • The transplantation of neural cells shows promise as a therapy for a number of neurological conditions. However, the survival, integration and function of these grafts must be optimized before they can reach their full potential. This review discusses the limited evidence relating to the effects of environment and experience on transplanted neurons.

  • Environmental enrichment can have profound effects on the central nervous system, producing both anatomical and functional changes. It can also increase fibre outgrowth from cholinergic grafts in rats, and can improve the ability of grafted rats to solve a maze task. Environmental enrichment can also improve behavioural performance on some tasks following cortical grafting, but this improvement might result from neuroprotective effects. The survival of nigral grafts is also improved by environmental enrichment.

  • Experience can also have strong influences on behavioural performance after grafting. In animals with dopaminergic nigral grafts, pharmacological treatment with amphetamine can induce place conditioning, which determines the direction and rate of subsequent motor rotation.

  • Specific training is sometimes needed to allow a graft to improve behavioural function. Rats with retinotectal grafts can be trained to 'see' a light stimulus using the graft. In the striatal lesion model of Huntington's disease, rats with striatal grafts can recover function on a choice reaction time task only after specific training on the side that is tested.

  • Further work is required to establish the mechanisms that underlie these effects. It will also be important to take account of the effects of experience when planning postoperative care for patients that have received neural transplants. Much more research is needed to fully explore this important area.

Abstract

Environmental enrichment, behavioural experience and cell transplantation can each influence neuronal plasticity and recovery of function after brain damage, and each has been extensively investigated in its own right. However, the degree to which housing conditions or behavioural training can modify the survival, integration or function of transplanted tissues is less well established. Here we review the limited literature available, and suggest that this factor should be considered and integrated into the postoperative care that follows the clinical application of neural transplantation.

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Figure 1: Environmental enrichment can enhance functional recovery associated with cortical grafts in ischaemic rats.
Figure 2: 'Learning to use the transplant' in the retinotectal system.
Figure 3: Retraining in a choice reaction time task by rats with striatal lesions and grafts.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the recurrent funding of the UK Medical Research Council in support of our own studies in this area.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Museum Avenue Box 911, Cardiff, CF10 3US, Wales, UK

    Màtè D. Döbrössy & Stephen B. Dunnett

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  1. Màtè D. Döbrössy
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  2. Stephen B. Dunnett
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Correspondence to Màtè D. Döbrössy.

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DATABASES

LocusLink

GAP43

NCAM

neurofilament light polypeptide

synaptophysin

OMIM

Huntington's disease

Parkinson's disease

FURTHER INFORMATION

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences

Huntington disease

Parkinson disease

Glossary

HEBB–WILLIAMS MAZE

An open field with moveable barriers that challenges the animal's learning and memory capabilities in locating a box from a given starting position.

OPERANT CONDITIONED SUPPRESSION

A classical conditioning paradigm in which a stimulus (e.g. light) that predicts an event (e.g. mild shock) interrupts a learned behaviour (e.g. lever pressing for food).

IMMEDIATE-EARLY GENES

Genes that are expressed as one of the earliest responses of cells to factors that initiate the transition between the quiescent and activated states.

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Döbrössy, M., Dunnett, S. The influence of environment and experience on neural grafts. Nat Rev Neurosci 2, 871–879 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35104055

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