Journal
PSYCHONEUROENDOCRINOLOGY
Volume 37, Issue 11, Pages 1745-1754Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.03.008
Keywords
Long-term moderate exercise; Treadmill; Hole board; Elevated plus maze; Open field; Stress responsiveness; ACTH; Corticosterone; Metabolism
Categories
Funding
- Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia [PSI 2008-06417-C03-01,, PSI 2008-06417-C03-02, PSI 2008-06417-C03-03, SAF2008-01175, SAF-2009-13093]
- Instituto de Salud Carlos III [DPS2008-06998-C01, DPS2008-06998-C02, RD06/0001/0015]
- Redes Tematicas de Investigacion Cooperativa en Salud
- Generalitat de Catalunya [SGR2009-16, 2009/SGR00893]
- predoctoral fellowship from the Generalitat de Catalunya [FI-DGR 2011]
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The benefits of long-term moderate exercise for health are widely accepted in humans, but few animal studies have been undertaken to characterize the effects of such activity on emotionality and responsiveness to stress. The present study describes the effects of long-term moderate forced treadmill training (36 weeks) on exploratory activity, anxiety-like behaviour, and the resting or stress levels of some physiological variables, including pituitary-adrenal (PA) hormones. Five-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained on the treadmill (TM) for 36 weeks, using a more moderate training (12 m/min, 30 min/day, 4-5 days/week) than that currently used in the literature. Two groups were used as controls: a non-handled sedentary (SED) group, receiving no manipulation, and a control (CON) group exposed to a stationary treadmill for the same amount of time as the TM group. In accordance with literature data, TM rats showed lower resting levels of glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol than the other two groups. The TM and CON groups both showed higher ambulation than the SED group in some behavioural tests, without evidence for altered anxiety. Resting levels of adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) and corticosterone did not differ among the groups, but a reduced ACTH response to both a novel environment (mild stressor) and an active escape-avoidance task (severe stressor) was observed in TM rats, whereas changes in corticosterone were modest. The results support the view that the physiological consequences of long-term moderate training are beneficial, including reduced PA responsiveness to stress, even though exercise training did not affect anxiety-like behaviour. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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