Behavioral Effects of Differential Experience

Abstract

Just as manipulation of the complexity of the stimulus environment leads to changes in the brain, experimental manipulation of the stimulus world has a measurable impact on behavior; indeed, this issue was studied prior to the search for neural correlates of differential experience. As early as 1947, Hebb reported behavioral differences between rats reared in a complex environment and rats reared in an impoverished environment. Since that time, the majority of investigations of behavior in differentially housed animals have focussed on direct measures of learning and memory; few studies have addressed other facets of behavior. While an impressive catalog can be assembled of our knowledge of anatomical and neurochemical differences between the brains of animals from enriched and impoverished environments, comparatively little is known about just what these differences are good for in the animals’ world, and even less is known of the nature of the relationship between cerebral and behavioral alterations induced by differential environments.

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