Aerobic exercise is a feasible intervention for delaying disease progression in Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by a gradual loss of memory and cognitive function. Tau hyperphosphorylation and aggregation is major proximal causes of neuron loss in AD pathogenesis. Physical exercise may be an important adjunct to pharmacological treatment of AD, but the effects of aerobic exercise on tau gene expression are not well known. Thus, the purpose of present study was to determine the effects of aerobic exercise on tau gene expression in rats with trimethyltin (TMT) model of AD.

In this experiment, Thirty tow mature Sprague-dawley male rats were subjected to Alzheimer’s disease through intraperitoneally injection of 8 mg/kg TMT and then were divided into (1) control, (2) Alzheimer-infected control group, (3) endurance training, and (4) sham to study the impact of the disease on the variables. The rats in the endurance training group ran on a rat treadmill with the speed of 15 to 20 meters per minute for 15 to 30 minutes in each session, 3 times a week for 8 weeks. To analyze the results of the tests, one-way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc test were run using SPSS.

The results indicated that TMT injection increases the tau gene expression in the Alzheimer-infected control group. No significant differences were observed between sham and control groups. TMT rats had increased levels of tau gene expression that were significantly ameliorated by exercise (P<0.05).

Our results suggest that aerobic exercise is a feasible intervention for delaying disease progression in AD.