The Effect of 4-Week Voluntary Wheel Running on Hippocampus Levels of Semaphorin 3B and Hydrogen peroxide and Apoptosis in Diabetic Rats

One of the complications of diabetes is the occurrence of apoptosis in the brain that can lead to cognitive impairment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 4 weeks of voluntary wheel running on hippocampus semaphorin 3B, hydrogen peroxide, and apoptosis in streptozotocin-diabetic rats.

In this experimental study, 32 male Wistar rats weight 235±10gr were assigned randomly to 4 groups (n=8): healthy control (C), healthy exercise (E), control-diabetic (D) and diabetic-exercise (ED). Rats were diabetic by intra-peritoneal injection of STZ dissolved in citrate buffer. The experimental groups ran voluntarily in the wheel running for 4 weeks. The subjects were sacrificed 48 hours after the last training session, then hippocampus tissue was extracted from the brain, and ELISA measurements were performed after homogenization and centrifugation of the tissue. One-way ANOVA and independent t-test were used to evaluate the data.

The levels of semaphorin 3B, hydrogen peroxide and apoptosis in D group were significantly higher than C group (P≤0.05). In the ED group, semaphorin 3B, hydrogen peroxide and apoptosis levels were significantly lower than D group (P≤0.05). Semaphorin 3B and apoptosis levels in the E group were significantly lower than C and ED groups (P≤0.05).

The results showed that experimental diabetes induction increases semaphorin 3B, hydrogen peroxide and apoptosis rate in the brain hippocampus. Four weeks of voluntary running was associated with a decrease in the hippocampus levels of semaphorin 3B, hydrogen peroxide and apoptosis.