Effects of physical exercise on seizure-induced cognitive deficits / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the long-term effects of physical exercise on learning,memory and the expression of plasticity-related gene-1 (PRG-1) in the cerebral cortex of rats with penicillin-induced developmental seizures.Methods Twenty-four 21-day Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into a control group (CONT1),an exercised control group (CONT2),a seizure group (EXP1) and a seizure plus exercises group (EXP2),each of 6 using a random number table.Penicillin was injected intraperitoneally to the rats in the EXP1 and EXP2 groups to induce seizures,while those in the CONT1 and CONT2 groups received saline injections.Morris water-maze tests were performed to evaluate spatial learning and memory capacity.The rats in the CONT2 and EXP2 groups were administered an aerobic exercise program 30 min per day for 6 consecutive days.The other groups were maintained on the treadmill for the same time but without exercising.Real-time polymerase chain reactions were used to quantify the expression of PRG-1 mRNA in the cerebral cortex.Results There was a decreasing trend in marginal searching and increasing taxis and linear searching in all four groups.Ridit analysis showed that in the watermaze tests on days 2 and 4 the average scores of the control groups were significantly higher than those of the EXP1 and EXP2 groups.However,significant increases in the average scores were observed in the maze tests of the EXP1 group after day 2 and with the EXP2 group from day 4 on.The average scores of the control group were significantly lower than those of the other 3 groups.In the first maze test,the average memory scores of the two seizure groups were significantly lower than those of the controls.In the second maze test,however,only the EXP1 group's average score was significantly worse than those of the other groups.That of the EXP2 group had improved significantly,and was not significantly different from that of the CONT2 group.The expression of PRG-1 was much higher in the CONT2,EXP1 and EXP2 groups than in the CONT1 group.The average expression of PRG-1 in the EXP2 group was not significantly different from that in the EXP1 group.Conclusions Physical exercise can significantly relieve the cognitive deficits induced by long-term seizures,which may be associated with the regulation of PRG-1 expression in the cerebral cortex.