The effect of short- and long-term exercise courses on memory impairment induced by ethidium bromide injection in the hippocampus of the brain of male rats

Multiple sclerosis is the most common non-traumatic debilitating disease that affects the memory of affected people in addition to motor disabilities. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of improving short- and long-term exercise on spatial memory impairment induced by ethidium bromide injection in the CA region of the hippocampus of male rats.

This study was performed on seven groups of 7 male rats with an average age of 10 weeks and a weight range of 200±50 grams, including: control group, sham group, ethidium bromide group, two groups under short and long term exercise and two ethidium bromide + exercise experimental groups. Morris water maze was used to measure spatial memory.

Injection of 3 μl of ethidium bromide 0.01 into the CA1 region of the hippocampus on the third to fifth days of experiments reduced spatial memory-related parameters (P < 0.05). In addition, applying of short and long-term exercise courses was able to improve the parameters of elapsed time (P < 0.05) and distance traveled (P < 0.05) to find the platform in the third to fifth days of the experiment due to the effect of ethidium bromide in the Morris water maze.

Despite the beneficial effect of exercise on improving the memory of rats, the results of the study showed that, short-term exercise course has a greater effect on improving the memory of poisoned rats induced by ethidium bromide injection in a 7-day period than long-term exercise.