Effects of Aerobic Training, Extract of Althaea kurdica and Noise Stress on the Anxiety-related Behaviors, Plasma Levels of Nitric Oxide and Serotonin in Wistar Male Rats

Physical activity and medicinal plants have been used years for the treatment of different neuropsychological diseases such as anxiety. This study aimed to assess the effects of training, Althaea kurdica extract injection, and noise stress on the anxiety-related behaviors, plasma levels of nitric oxide and serotonin in Wistar male rats. Thirty-five male rats were randomly divided into five groups of seven, noise, training + noise, extract + noise, training + noise + extract, and control groups. The aerobic training was performed 5 days per week, for a 60day period. The noise stress included exposure to traffic noise 5 hours per day over a 60-day period (range: 95 ± 15 dB). The Althaea curdica extract (500 mg/kg of body weight) was injected intraperitoneally (IP) 30 minutes prior to the plus maze test. The control group was not exposed to any noise or exercise, and was kept away from the sources of stress; the rats were kept under the same conditions. At the end of the experiment, blood samples were collected and plasma nitric oxide (NO) and serotonin concentrations were determined with special kits for rat. For the statistical data analysis, ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc tests were used at the significant level of P ≤ 0.05. In the noise + training + extract group, the anxiety was less and nitric oxide and serotonin were more than that of the noise stress group compared with the control group (P < 0.01). It seems that aerobic training and extract injections had eliminated the effect of noise stress, and apparently the effect of aerobic training was more significant than that of the extracts.