Olson 2006 Environmental enrichment and voluntary exercise massively increase neurogenesis

[Phil]

I wasn't sure where to post this. I've been reading a few article that say environmental enrichment can aid neurogenesis (which helps depression and anxiety).

 

Here's one article (there's tons of article on this):

 

http://biopsychiatry.com/voluntary-exercise.htm

 

Has this topic been mentioned before?

[Altostrata]

No, but every bit of information about neurogenesis and how to bring it about without drugs is appreciated.

 

Do you know what this paper means by environmental enrichment?

[Phil]

To be honest, I can't make sense of it, it's a bit technical for me, lol. I'm assuming that it simply means changing your environment aids neurogenesis. Probably the same thing with exercise.

[alexjuice]

I wasn't sure where to post this. I've been reading a few article that say environmental enrichment can aid neurogenesis (which helps depression and anxiety).

 

Here's one article (there's tons of article on this):

 

biopsychiatry.com

 

Hey Phil,

 

I've spent a good bit of time on that site, biopsychiatry.com... It carries links mostly to abstracts and this is harmless. But the organization behind that site, BLTC RESEARCH, sets off all sorts of alarms and whistles for me. They own a lot of good domains, cocaine.org, mdma.com (or org)... These are hard to get and caught my interest, so I went digging.

 

From their homepage, they start of the description of their enterprise like so...

 

"BLTC RESEARCH was founded in 1995 to promote paradise-engineering."

 

Ummmm, yeah...

 

Biopsychiatry is an interesting site, but all should know it's operated by one or more chem-buffs interested in alternative consciousness achieved via chemistry. So, for me, some of the positions and assumptions sound a bit... off.

 

I can't comment on the science, but my guess is on the technicals the info is fairly accurate.

 

Again, interesting site... Certainly one of best endorsements of the crack cocaine high I've ever encountered. (Not that they endorse crack smoking. More like they wish one could smoke crack since it's so wonderful... but ya can't without causing brain damage.)

 

Here's that bit:

 

Crack-cocaine delivers an intensity of pleasure completely outside the normal range of human experience. It offers the most wonderful state of consciousness, and the most intense sense of being alive, the user will ever enjoy. (S)he will access heightened states of being whose modes are unknown to chemically-naïve contemporaries. Groping for adequate words, crack-takers sometimes speak of the rush in terms of a "whole-body orgasm". Drug-naive virgins - slightly shop-soiled or otherwise - cannot be confident (unless in thrall to ill-conceived logical behaviourist theories of meaning) that they have grasped the significance of such an expression. For to do so, it would be necessary to take the drug via its distinctive delivery-mechanism oneself. This is at best very imprudent.

 

from http://cocaine.org

 

anyway... ummm, yea...

 

BTW, they are overselling crack... like by a freaking mile.

 

So, that's my digression.

 

Hope you are doing well today.

 

alex.i

[Phil]

Hi Alex, thanks for the heads up about that site. I literally just linked to the first study I found. I do recall reading that site in the past actually, it does seem a bit dodgy.

This one should be more reputable: The Journal of neuroscience.

 

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/16/6159.abstract

 

This abstract talks about how Enviornmental enrichement helps stress resiliency.

[Nadia]

This might help explain it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_enrichment_%28neural%29

 

I think it means you are better off in an environment that is engaging and pleasing to you... so don't sit at home all day in your living room. Stimulate and engage your senses. Smells, colors, shapes, tastes, sounds, challenges. Anything that engages your mind and emotion, I'm willing to bet.