Therapeutic strategy for the chronic pain through the neurogenesis of the central nervous system in enriched environment

Our results indicate that exposure to an enriched environment enhances neurogenesis and regulates emotionality. Enriched environment increases BDNF mRNA expression via sustained epigenetic modification in the mouse hippocampus. The chronic pain process promotes astrogliosis in the cingulate cortex through the dysfunction of cortical □-opioid receptors. Furthermore, chronic pain suppressed enriched environment mediated induction of both DCX- and NeuroD-labeled cells. These results suggest that chronic pain has stress-like damaging modulatory effects on hippocampal neurogenesis.