The effect of four weeks of voluntary and compulsory training on anxiety-like behavior induced by childhood stress and cerebellar inflammatory factors in rats

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of four weeks of voluntary and compulsory exercise training in adolescence on pseudo-anxiety behaviors and its effect on the expression of fetal inflammatory factors in the cerebellum.

To conduct the experiment, 40 male rats were randomly divided into 5 groups of the control (C), separated from the mother (MS), separated from the mother and voluntary exercise (MS + RW), separated from the mother and compulsory exercise (MS + TM), and isolated from the mother and Fluoxetine (MS + FLX). Except for the control group, the rats of other groups were separated from their mothers from the second to the 14th day after birth for 180 minutes. Subsequently, the subjects were kept in cages of four rats until the 28th day. Drug and treatment groups were treated with the voluntary procedure (running wheel), compulsory practice (treadmill) and drug (Fluoxetine) from the 28th day. On the 60th day, pseudo-anxiety behaviors were evaluated by EPM behavior test. The level of the gene expression of inflammatory factors in the cerebellum was also measured.

Our results showed that voluntary exercise could significantly and more effectively than compulsory training eliminate anxiety-like behaviors induced by the stress of separation from the mother from the mother, and reduce the expression of the inflammatory factors’ gene in the cerebellum.

The results of this study indicated that voluntary exercise can be useful as a non-prescriptive therapeutic approach against mental and psychological disorders such as anxiety.