Effects of maternal age and environmental enrichment on learning ability and brain size.

ABSTRACT: It is well known that maternal age at reproduction affects offspring lifespan and some other fitness-related traits, but it remains understudied whether maternal senescence affects how offspring respond to their environments. Early environment often plays a significant role in the development of an animal's behavioral phenotype. For example, complex environments can promote changes in cognitive ability and brain morphology in young animals. Here, we study whether and how maternal effect senescence influences offspring plasticity in cognition, group behavior, and brain morphology in response to environmental complexity. For this, juvenile 3-spined sticklebacks from young and old mothers (i.e. 1-yr and 2-yr-old) were exposed to different levels of environmental enrichment and complexity (i.e

SUBMITTER: Alvarez-Quintero N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11215699 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature