The behavioral effects of enriched housing are not altered by serotonin depletion but enrichment alters hippocampal neurochemistry

To assess a possible role for serotonin in the mediation of the behavioral changes induced by enriched housing conditions (EC), adult female Long–Evans rats sustaining a serotonin depletion (150 μg of 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine, icv) and sham-operated rats were housed postoperatively for 30 days in enriched (12 rats/large cage containing various objects) or standard housing conditions (2 rats/standard laboratory cage). Thereafter, anxiety responses (elevated plus-maze), locomotor activity (in the home-cage), sensori-motor capabilities (beam-walking task), and spatial memory (eight-arm radial maze) were assessed. Monoamine levels were subsequently measured in the frontoparietal cortex and the hippocampus.Overall, EC reduced anxiety-related responses, enhanced sensori-motor performance and improved the memory span in the initial stage of the spatial memory task. Despite a substantial reduction of serotonergic markers in the hippocampus (82%) and the cortex (74%), these positive effects of EC were not altered by the lesion. EC reduced the serotonin levels in the ventral hippocampus (particularly in unlesioned rats: −23%), increased serotonin turnover in the entire hippocampus (particularly in lesioned rats: +36%) and augmented the norepinephrine levels in the dorsal hippocampus (+68% in unlesioned and +49% in lesioned rats); no such alterations were found in the frontoparietal cortex.Our data suggest that an intact serotonergic system is not a prerequisite for the induction of positive behavioral effects by EC. The neurochemical changes found in the hippocampus of EC rats, however, show that the monoaminergic innervation of the hippocampus is a target of EC.