Coping with Exercise Induced Spatial Memory Improvement in Morphine Dependent Rats by Inhibiting Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)

Addiction as achronic disorder that requires long treatment. One way to treating this chronic disease is exercise. Chronic exposure to opiates impairs spatial learning and memory. Given the well-known beneficial effects of voluntary exercise on cognitive functions, we investigated whether voluntary exercise would ameliorate the cognitive deficits that are induced by morphine dependence. If an effect of exercise was observed, we aimed to investigate the possible role of hippocampal brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF)in the exercise-induced enhancement of learning and memory in morphine-dependent rats.

The rats were injected with bi-daily doses (10 mg/kg, at 12 hr. intervals) of morphine over a period of 10 days of voluntary exercise. Following these injections, a water maze task was performed twice a day for 5 consecutive days, followed by a probe trial 2 days later. A specific BDNF inhibitor (TrkB-IgG chimera) was used to block the hippocampal BDNF action during the 10 days of voluntary exercise.

The voluntary exercise diminished the severity of the rats’ dependency on morphine. A blockade of the BDNF action blunted the exercise-induced improvement of spatial memory, hippocampal neuron counting and BDNF protein levels in the dependent rats. Our results indicate that voluntary exercise could be increase the expression of LTP by lowering the induction threshold for LTP in the DG of morphine-dependent rats.

Thus, voluntary exercise might be considered as a potential method to ameliorate some of the deleterious behavioral consequences of the abuse of morphine and other opiates.