Environmental enrichment condition does not alter glutamine synthetase activity in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex of Swiss albino mice

Environment enrichment (EE) promotes morphological changes in astrocytes and gliogenesis, as well an increment in the synapses number of hippocampus. In addition, exposure to EE is known to increase the astrocytic number and volume in cortical regions. The glutamine synthetase (GS) is an astrocyte enzyme that converts glutamate into glutamine, which play an important role in the glutamate/glutamine cycle. Here, we hypothesized that the GS activity would be increased in the cortex and hippocampus of mice living in EE. For this, mice were assigned randomly in two housing conditions: standard condition (SC) or enriched environment (EE) and the GS activity was evaluated after 9 weeks. Our results showed that EE did not promote any significant change in GS activity in both regions tested. Future studies must focus on the temporal analyses of GS activity after EE conditions as well in other species and/or strains and during distinct age of life in order to understand the factors affecting the GS activity after exposition to EE conditions.