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No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. While the positive effects of environmental enrichment EE applied after weaning, in adulthood, during aging, or even in the presence of brain damage have been widely described, the transgenerational effects of pre-reproductive EE have been less examined. Interactions between individual and environment take place lifelong even before conception.
Furthermore, pre-reproductive parental enrichment exerts a transgenerational impact on coping response to stress as well as on the social behavior of the offspring. Among the effects of pre-reproductive parental EE, a potentiation of the maternal care and a decrease in global methylation levels in the frontal cortex and hippocampus of the progeny have been described.
Finally, pre-reproductive EE modifies different pathways of neuromodulation in the brain of the offspring involving brain-derived neurotrophic factor, oxytocin and glucocorticoid receptors.
The present review highlights the importance of pre-reproductive parental enrichment in altering the performances not only of animals directly experiencing it, but also of their progeny, thus opening the way to new hypotheses on the inheritance mechanisms of behavioral traits. Keywords: environmental enrichment, maternal care, motor behavior, cognition, BDNF, oxytocin, stress response, rats. Organisms adapt their physiology and behavior in response to environmental modifications.
