Housing experience affects adult neurogenesis in turtles (Chrysemys picta)

Adult neurogenesis increases in mammals when they are exposed to an enriched environment or given the opportunity to exercise. In this experiment, we investigated whether turtles would show differences in the number of new neurons in the telencephalon when they were exposed to deep water, conspecifics, and plants and logs (EE group), compared to a group of animals housed in individual cages with shallow water (IN group). A control group (EX) was given deep water and conspecifics but no plants and logs. We gave nine injections of BrdU over a 3-week period, starting when the turtles were introduced to the housing. The results showed that both the EE and the EX groups had more new cells in the dorsal ventricular ridge (DVR), a sensory area of the telencephalon. The two groups did not differ from one another. The group-housed animals also had a higher percentage of new neurons in the DVR that were double labeled for NeuN, a marker of neurons, compared to the IN group. There were no significant differences between groups in the number of new cells in the medial cortex, the homolog of the hippocampus. These findings demonstrate that the housing experience influences the number of new cells that survive in the brains of turtles. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).