Effects of sensorimotor forelimb training and environmental enrichment on neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus after focal cortical infarcts

Neurogenesis is known to occur throughout life in the dentate gyrus of rodents and is modulated by learning, physical activity and environmental enrichment. Only little is known about these activity-dependent changes in neurogenesis after brain insults such as stroke. In this study we investigated the effects of specific sensorimotor training and unspecific activation in an enriched environment on neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of adult rats after focal brain ischemia. In this study we induced cortical infarcts in the forelimb cortex and analyzed the effects of daily reaching training of the impaired forelimb…