The Effect of one Course of Swimming Exercise before Induction of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) on Nerve Growth Factor Levels in Rat’s Brain

Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease with unknown etiology in the nervous system. However, exercise routinely for these patients is beneficial, but the effect of pretreatment swimming exercise in this disease has not been fixed. Therefore, the aim of these study was to investigate pretreatment effect of swimming exercise on NGF levels in female Lewis rats with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

This experimental in vitro study was conducted on female Lewis rats. In this study, animals were randomly divided into 4 groups (each group 5), including healthy control, EAE control, healthy swimming and EAE swimming. The training protocol included swimming exercise 1 hour/day, 5 days/week for six weeks.

This study shows that NGF levels in EAE swimming group were significantly increased compared to the same controls (P= 0.006). Also the weight of EAE swimming training group significantly increased compared with control (P=0.001).

According to these findings, concluded that pretreatment with sub-chronic swimming exercise, through increased levels of NGF, is effective in inhibiting EAE. Hence, perhaps, the protocol used in this study to enhance the protection of nerve cells in the brain tissue of MS Risk Factors and ultimately recommended to promote brain health.