Effect of Moderate Aerobic Activity on Balance, Motor Behavior, Serotonin and Tyrosine Hydroxylase Chemical Enzyme in Animal Model of Parkinson's Disease

In recent studies, balance and postural instability have been reported as a common motor disorder in Parkinson's patients, which leads to frequent falls, decreased quality of life, and mortality in these patients. On the other hand, evidence has shown that training is effective in treating motor and cognitive symptoms of neurodegenerative patients.

For this purpose, 24 male Wistar rats were randomly divided into three groups of eight rats including Healthy Control, Parkinson’s Control, and Parkinson’s Training. The animals in the training group were placed on a treadmill for four weeks. At the end of the course, motor disorders (balance and motor behavior) were evaluated using Rotarod and Open-Field tests, and biochemical factors were assessed by ELISA method. Data analysis was done using one-way ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test at a significant level of P<0.05, via SPSS version 19 software.

The results showed that although the Parkinson's group without training was significantly lower in terms of motor performance than the other groups (P<0.05), four weeks of moderate-intensity aerobic training increased the balance (P<0.05), and improved the motor disorders in Parkinson's rats (P<0.05). Also, training significantly increased the amount of serotonin (P<0.05), and tyrosine hydroxylase (P<0.05).

In general, the findings of this study showed that moderate-intensity aerobic training can reduce the biochemical and motor disorders induced by 6-hydroxydopamine injections in rats’ models of Parkinson's disease.