There is increasing evidence that physical activity is associated with a decreased stroke risk. The purpose of this study was to determine if exercise could also reduce brain damage in rats subjected to transient middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion, and if the reduced brain injury is associated with angiogenesis as ...

To determine whether application of interleukin-2 (IL-2) alters function of sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), we measured mechanical restitution and post-rest potentiation (PRP) in isolated rat papillary muscles. Mechanical restitution curves were constructed by interpolating extrasystoles at different test intervals following a train of steady state beats. In control group, the maximal ...

PURPOSE: Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) are used clinically to expedite healing of fracture non-unions, however, the mechanism of action by which PEMF stimulation is effective is unknown. The current study examined the acute effects of PEMF stimulation on arteriolar microvessel diameters in the rat cremaster muscle. The study hypothesis was ...

PURPOSE: There is controversy as to the use of intramuscular triacylglycerol (IMTAG) during exercise and to whether endurance training increases its utilization, despite the various methodologies used to address these questions. We used a histological-morphometrical approach to study the relative contribution of the two compartments of IMTAG storage, intramyocellular, and ...

It is well established that chronic exercise decreases sensitivity to mu opioid agonists; however, it is less clear what effects it has on kappa opioids. The purpose of the present study was to examine sensitivity to the effects of the selective, kappa opioid spiradoline in rats with free access to ...

Voluntary exercise leads to an upregulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and associated proteins involved in synaptic function. Activity-induced enhancement of neuroplasticity may be considered for the treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Given that during the first postinjury week the brain is undergoing dynamic restorative processes and energetic changes ...

The effects of running wheel exercise and caloric restriction on the regulation of body weight, adiposity, and hypothalamic neuropeptide expression were compared in diet-induced obese male rats over 6 wk. Compared with sedentary controls, exercising rats had reduced body weight gain (24%), visceral (4 fat pads; 36%) and carcass (leptin; ...

It is well known that glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) decreases after exercise training. In the present study, we investigated the effects of exercise training (9 weeks of running) on the activity of glucokinase (GK), the production of nitric oxide (NO), and the protein expressions of both glucose transporter-2 (GLUT-2) and ...

The aim of this study was to investigate whether endurance training reduces exercise-induced oxidative stress in erythrocytes. Male rats (n=54) were divided into trained (n=28) and untrained (n=26) groups. Both groups were further divided equally into two groups where the rats were studied at rest and immediately after exhaustive exercise. ...

Exercise is known to potentially affect the eating patterns. In the present study, the effect of treadmill exercise on the expressions of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of food-deprived rats was investigated using nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate-diaphorase (NADPH-d) histochemistry and ...

The risks associated with hormone replacement therapy, especially cardiac diseases in postmenopausal women, have prompted extensive studies for other preventive or therapeutic alternatives. We investigated the cardioprotective effects of exercise training on the changes in cardiac myofilament Ca2+ activation in 10-wk-old ovariectomized rats. The exercise groups were subjected to a ...

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BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Obesity and lack of physical exercise characterize increasing numbers of people in Western societies, resulting in increasing morbidity and mortality. Regular physical exercise, on the other hand, has been shown to be beneficial. Beneficial effects have also been shown in laboratory rodent studies--lifelong physical exercise increases the ...

Taurine is reported to increase contractility of skeletal muscle and cardiac myocyte, which can increase exercise performance. The present study aimed to clarify taurine's effect on chronic endurance exercise, especially accumulation of lactic acid (LA), a marker of fatigue and ability of aerobic exercise, and urinary secretion of 3-methylhistidine (3-MH), ...

Physical activities for a few days can increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) mRNA in rat hippocampus. To investigate the influence of maternal exercise during pregnancy on rat pup hippocampal BDNF mRNA, we studied its expression by a semi-quantitative RT-PCR method after young pregnant rats were exercised on a motor driven ...

In this study we describe the activity of two cyclic nociceptin/orphanin FQ (N/OFQ) peptides; c[Cys(10,14)]N/OFQ(1-14)NH(2) (c[Cys(10,14)]) and its [Nphe(1)] derivative c[Nphe(1),Cys(10,14)]N/OFQ(1-14)NH(2) (c[Nphe(1),Cys(10,14)]) in native rat and mouse and recombinant human N/OFQ receptors (NOP). Cyclisation may protect the peptide from metabolic degradation. In competition binding studies of rat, mouse and human ...

In human liver cirrhosis (LC), the Fischer ratio (branched-chain amino acid (BCAA)/aromatic amino acid (AAA)) is used as a marker of hepatic encephalopathy. Similarly, the plasma BCAA levels decrease while AAA levels increase in LC rats. However the BCAA and AAA ratio and the influence of exercise on this ratio ...

Low-intensity exercise increases strength and function in old adults, but it is unclear if change occurs secondary to "neural adaptation" or to intrinsic muscle adaptation. Whether function and strength change concomitantly is also unclear. We examined effects of a modest intensity, 10-session exercise program on muscle mass, contractile force, and ...

Red ginseng has been used as an ergogenic aid for endurance exercise. In this study, the effect of aqueous extract of Red ginseng on the endurance in treadmill exercise and 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin) synthesis and tryptophan hydroxylase expression in the dorsal raphe of rats were studied. Rats receiving Red ginseng showed ...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not chronic exercise could cause long-term metabolic plasticity in cerebellum. The activity of cytochrome oxidase (COX), coupled to ATP production, reflects long-term plasticity in metabolic capacity. The present study examined whether or not 10 weeks of voluntary exercise would increase ...

Endurance exercise is widely assumed to improve cardiac function in humans. This project has determined cardiac function following endurance exercise for 6 (n = 30) or 12 (n = 25) weeks in male Wistar rats (8 weeks old). The exercise protocol was 30 min/day at 0.8 km/h for 5 days/week ...

AIM: Effect of treadmill exercise on hippocampal cell proliferation under normal conditions has been well documented; however, this effect under alcohol intoxication conditions is not clarified, yet. In the present study, the effect of treadmill exercise on cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus in alcohol-intoxicated rats was investigated. METHODS: Experimental ...

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system plays an important role in the hydroelectrolytic balance, blood pressure regulation, and cell growth. In some studies, the insertion (I) allele of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene, associated with a lower ACE activity, has been found in excess frequency in elite endurance athletes, suggesting that decreased ACE ...

The purpose of the study was to determine whether exercise would activate JNK in the heart and whether chronic exercise training would alter the response. Untrained rats were familiarized with the treadmill and assigned to one of four groups: low intensity (LI), 10 min, 0%, 15 m/min; medium intensity (MI), ...

BACKGROUND: In heart failure, there is a sympathetically mediated hyperkinetic cardiovascular response to exercise that limits tolerance to physical activity. Alterations in skeletal muscle morphology and metabolism have led to the hypothesis that the exercise pressor reflex (EPR) becomes hyperactive after the development of cardiomyopathy and contributes to the exaggerated ...

We showed that the training-induced, pressure-lowering effect correlates with decreased arteriole wall/lumen ratio and venule growth in the gracilis muscle. To investigate whether these beneficial changes are tissue-specific or occur in other muscles and tissues, we analyzed the effects of hypertension and training on microcirculatory profile of locomotor/nonlocomotor muscles and ...

To clarify the changes of heat shock protein (HSP) 72 in the rat soleus muscle after hind-limb unloading (HU) and during reloading, 7-week-old male Wistar rats were hind-limb-suspended for 9 weeks, thereafter ambulatory recovery was permitted for 8 weeks. The body and absolute soleus weights were significantly lower in the ...

Adolescence and young adulthood may be critical windows in establishing risk for breast cancer development in humans. Epidemiological data suggest that exercise during this life stage is associated with decreased breast cancer risk yet few experimental studies to elucidate the mechanism have been performed. The purpose of these studies was ...

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that calcineurin, a calcium-dependent protein phosphatase recently implicated in the signaling of skeletal muscle hypertrophy and fiber type conversion, is required to induce some mitochondrial enzyme adaptations to endurance exercise training in skeletal muscle. Three- to four-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the rule of the aquaporin-4 (AQP4) expression in acute ischemic brain edema, and to study the correlation between AQP4 expression and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). METHODS: Thirty-six Wistar rats were divided into 2 groups randomly, control group (n = 12) and operation group (n = 24) in which ...

OBJECTIVE: The interaction between taste sensitivity and emotionality in rats provides a provocative view of hyperactivity. Rats that have been bred selectively for their reactivity to saccharin exhibit characteristic emotionality. When placed on restrictive diets, these rats exhibit excessive activity levels, relative to rats that are not sensitive to saccharin. ...

The effect of jump exercise on middle-aged osteopenic rats was investigated. Forty-two 9-mo-old female rats were either sham-operated (Sham) or ovariectomized (OVX). Three months after surgery, the rats were divided into the following groups: Sham sedentary, Sham exercised, OVX sedentary, and OVX exercised. Rats in the exercise groups jumped 10 ...

Available evidence suggests that regular, moderate-intensity exercise has beneficial effects on neural health, perhaps including neuroprotection. To evaluate this idea further, we compared the severity of kainate-induced neuronal loss in exercised versus sedentary female rats. Stereological estimations of neuron number revealed that rats in the exercise condition exhibited significantly greater ...

Little is known about the effects of physical activity (i.e., exercise training) on susceptibility to environmental toxicants. Chlorpyrifos (CHP), an organophosphate (OP) insecticide, affects thermoregulation, causing an acute period of hypothermia followed by a delayed fever. Since exercise conditioning alters the thermoregulatory responses of rodents, this study examined whether exercise ...

RATIONALE: Exercise stimulates the release of endogenous opioid peptides and increases nociceptive (i.e. pain) thresholds in both human and animal subjects. During chronic, long-term exercise, sensitivity to the effects of morphine and other mu opioids decreases, leading some investigators to propose that exercise may lead to the development of cross ...

Endurance exercise modifies regulatory systems that control skeletal muscle Na+ and K+ fluxes, in particular Na+-K+-ATPase-mediated transport of these ions. Na+ and K+ ion channels also play important roles in the regulation of ionic movements, specifically mediating Na+ influx and K+ efflux that occur during contractions resulting from action potential ...

Arterial stiffness increases with age in healthy sedentary adults. We previously reported that the age-related increases in arterial stiffness are absent or attenuated in regularly exercising adults. However, the mechanism underlying this training effect is unknown. One possibility is that regular exercise minimizes age-related changes in the arterial wall composition ...

The present paper describes an exercise model that produces a voluntary hindlimb weight-lifting response. Each rat was operantly conditioned to enter a vertical tube, insert its head into a weighted ring (either 70 g or 700 g), lift the ring until its nose interrupted an infrared detector, and then lower ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) promotes motor recovery after occlusive stroke in humans, but its efficacy after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) has not been investigated clinically or in the laboratory. In this study we tested whether CIMT and a rehabilitation exercise program would lessen motor deficits after ICH in ...

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of long-term exercise training on the main components involved in excitation-contraction coupling and relaxation in rat myocardium. Twenty male Wistar rats were divided into sedentary (S) and treadmill-trained (T) groups. Group T was trained for 24 weeks, 5 days/week (25 m/min, ...

The expression of c-Fos, an immediately early gene, is a marker of neural activity. In the present study, the effect of treadmill exercise on c-Fos expression was investigated in various regions of the rat hippocampus via immunohistochemistry. The first part of the experiment was aimed at determining the dependence of ...

We investigated the effect of an acute bout of endurance exercise on c-Fos protein levels in the extensor digitorum longus muscle of trained and untrained rats. Fifty rats were equally divided into a trained and an untrained group. Rats of the trained group ran on a treadmill 45 min/day for ...

The effect of treadmill exercise on cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus was studied in Sprague-Dawley rats via 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine (BrdU)-specific immunohistochemistry. For studying the dependence of this effect on the magnitude of exercise, animals were divided into the control, light-exercise, moderate-exercise, and severe-exercise groups; different exercise regimens were applied to ...

Following 10 weeks of endurance training and in age-matched sedentary rats, sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca(2+)-uptake, Ca(2+)-release, and Ca(2+)-stimulated adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) activity were examined in homogenates of the plantaris and soleus muscles from rats subjected to moderate-intensity treadmill running to exhaustion. In order to examine the effects of acute exercise and/or ...

Myocardial function is enhanced by endurance exercise training, but the cellular mechanisms underlying this improved function remain unclear. A number of studies have shown that the characteristics of cardiac myocytes vary across the width of the ventricular wall. We have previously shown that endurance exercise training alters the Ca2+ sensitivity ...

Previously we have shown that chronic as well as a single bout of exercise 20 h prior to a simulated dive protects rats from severe decompression illness (DCI) and death. However, the mechanism behind this protection is still not known. The present study determines the effect of inhibiting nitric oxide ...

Exercise capacity in patients with several types of cardiovascular disease can be improved with dietary carnitine, or carnitine derivatives. Mechanisms underlying this improvement remain largely unknown in part due to a lack of animal models of cardiac pathology in which carnitine derivatives improve exercise tolerance. Our goal was to evaluate ...

This study investigated the expression of heat shock protein 72 (HSP 72) in quadriceps femoris muscle following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) resection and running training in rats. A group of 15 Wistar strain male rats (10 weeks old) were divided into three groups: sham-operated (S), ACL resection (A), and running ...

Plastic changes in motor cortex capillary structure and function were examined in three separate experiments in adult rats following prolonged exercise. The first two experiments employed T-two-star (T(2)*)-weighted and flow-alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess chronic changes in blood volume and flow as a result of ...

Exercise training is known to induce physiological adaptations that improve exercise performance and alter patterns of energy substrate utilization to favour fatty acid oxidation. L-Carnitine is an essential cofactor for the oxidation of fatty acids under all physiological conditions, including exercise. This study evaluated the effect of acute exercise on ...