During the COVID-19 isolation period, children could not socialize/play with their peers like they normally would and were left without normalized levels of socialization. We are aware that being reared in social isolation leads to a wide range of behavioral, emotional, physical, and cognitive deficits. But what are the neurological effects in the long run?
In this study, Atypical play experiences in the juvenile period has an impact on the development of the medial prefrontal cortex in both male and female rats. Dr. Stark and his research team seek out the neurological deficits of isolated juvenile rats, focusing on the dendrites of pyramidal neurons of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC).
In previous studies, rats were isolated in chambers individually, and only chose one gender to monitor. Dr. Stark and his team chose different breeds of juvenile mice; more playful Long Evans (LE) and low-playing Fischer 344 (F344) rats. They also included both genders of rats. They found that LE rats reared with other LE rats had greater mPFC pyramidal neuronal pruning than LE rats with F344 partners.
Since both genders were tested, they also found that play influenced neuronal pruning in both. Overall, the male rats had larger brain weights than the female rats, but the LE rats of both genders reared with the F344 partners had significantly larger brains. This was consistent with their finding that play is an important experience for pruning neural tissue.
In the comparison between LE rats and F344 rats, they noticed that the neurons belonging to the play deficit LE rats occupied more space, and their dendrites were longer than the LE rats paired with other LE rats. This also meant that with longer dendrites, the pyramidal neurons had more expansive projections that could connect with a wider range of cells. Since they are able to make more connections with these wider cell ranges, the dendrites' efficiency is lowered.
Another interesting finding was the difference in change between the apical and basilar projections in the neocortex. The apical fibers connect with subcortical regions, including motor control and emotional regulation. Damage to the mPFC apical fibers with asocial behavior could account for deficiencies in inter-animal coordination. The lack of pruning in the apical fibers in play-deprived rats is coupled with alterations in adults' social skills, which point to reduced control by the mPFC over their behavior.
They hypothesize that play improves socio-cognitive skills by fine-tuning the connections of the apical arbor. It would be really interesting to learn what they find.
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