1. Regular exercise prevents non-cognitive disturbances in a rat model of Alzheimer's disease.
- Author
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Dao AT, Zagaar MA, Salim S, Eriksen JL, and Alkadhi KA
- Subjects
- Alzheimer Disease chemically induced, Alzheimer Disease metabolism, Animals, Anxiety chemically induced, Anxiety metabolism, Anxiety prevention & control, Behavior, Animal physiology, CA1 Region, Hippocampal pathology, Calcineurin metabolism, Calcium-Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase Type 2 metabolism, Disease Models, Animal, Male, Physical Conditioning, Animal methods, Random Allocation, Rats, Rats, Wistar, Synaptic Transmission physiology, Alzheimer Disease prevention & control, CA1 Region, Hippocampal metabolism, Motor Activity physiology
- Abstract
Previously, we reported that in a rat model of sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD) generated by exogenous administration of Aβ₁₋₄₂ (250 pmol/d for 2 wk) via mini-osmotic pump, the animals exhibited learning and memory impairment, which could be attributed to the deleterious alterations in the levels of cognition-related signalling molecules. We showed that 4 wk of treadmill exercise totally prevented these impairments. Here, we evaluated the effect of exercise on non-cognitive function and basal synaptic transmission in the Cornu Ammonis 1 (CA1) area using the same AD model. Our results indicated that the anxiety behaviour of Aβ-treated rats was prevented by 4 wk of treadmill exercise. Exercised/Aβ-infused rats spent a longer time in the centre area of the open field (OF), elevated plus maze (EPM) paradigms and the light area of the light-dark (LD) box, which were similar to those of control and exercise rats. Furthermore, under basal conditions the aberrant up-regulation of calcineurin (PP2B) and reduction of phosphorylated Ca²⁺/calmodulin dependent protein kinase II (p-CaMKII) levels induced by AD-like pathology were normalised by the exercise regimen. We conclude that regular exercise may exert beneficial effects on both cognitive and non-cognitive functions in this AD model.
- Published
- 2014
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