The Effect of Eight-Week Aerobic Exercise before Cerebral Ischemia on the Expression of NT-3 and TrkC Genes in Male Rats

Cerebral ischemia causes irreversible structural and functional damages in certain areas of the brain, especially the hippocampus. Evidence indicates that physical exercise may reduce the damages caused by cerebral ischemia. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of 8-week exercise preconditioning on the expression of NT-3 and TrkC genes in the CA1 region of the hippocampus after the cerebral ischemic-reperfusion in male rats.

Twenty-one male Wistar rats weighing 250-300 gr were randomly selected and divided into three groups (healthy control, control + ischemia and exercise + ischemia). Rats in the exercise group ran on a treadmill 5 days per week for 8 weeks. Ischemia by occlusion of both common carotid arteries (CCA) was created for 45 minutes. In order to evaluate the gene expression, Real time PCR technique was used.

NT-3 gene expression was significantly different between exercise + ischemia with control + ischemia groups and control + ischemia with healthy control groups (P <0.05), and TrkC gene expression was significantly different between exercise + ischemia with healthy control groups and control + ischemia with healthy control groups (P <0.05).

The results of this study demonstrated that exercise before the induction of ischemic stroke increased the NT-3 gene expression but did not influence the TrKC gene expression.