Daily spontaneous running alters behavioral and neurochemical indexes of nigrostriatal function.

Daily spontaneous running alters behavioral and neurochemical indexes of nigrostriatal function.

Dluzen D E; Liu B; Chen C Y; DiCarlo S E

Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985)

1995

1995-04

Behavioral and neurochemical indexes of nigrostriatal dopaminergic function were compared between sedentary control rats (n = 12) and daily spontaneous running (DSR) male rats (n = 10). Nine weeks of DSR did not significantly alter body, heart, pituitary, or testes weights. DSR and control animals did differ in performance on a sensorimotor beam walking task, with DSR rats showing significantly shorter times required to cross the beam (60 +/- 17 vs. 119 +/- 14s; P \textless 0.02) as well as fewer slips off the beam (3.0 +/- 0.8 vs 6.2 +/- 1.1; P \textless 0.05). DSR animals also engaged in significantly greater durations of social investigation than control rats (43 +/- 5 vs 25 +/- 3 s; P \textless 0.01) when tested in a social investigation memory-recognition test. Basal dopamine release rates from superfused corpus striatal tissue fragments of DSR rats were about one-half those obtained from control animals (18 +/- 5 vs. 34 +/- 6 pg.mg-1.min-1; P \textless 0.05), whereas responses of these striatal tissue fragments to a depolarizing concentration of potassium were virtually identical (45 +/- 10 vs. 47 +/- 8 pg.mg-1.min-1). These data indicate that a relatively limited intensity of DSR insufficient to alter cardiovascular function can exert substantial effects on behavioral and neurochemical indicators of nigrostriatal dopaminergic activity.

Animal/*physiology; Animals; Behavior; Chromatography; Circadian Rhythm; Corpus Striatum/cytology/*physiology; Dopamine/*metabolism; High Pressure Liquid; In Vitro Techniques; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Organ Size; Perfusion; Physical Conditioning; Potassium/*metabolism; Psychomotor Performance/*physiology; Random Allocation; Rats; Sprague-Dawley

Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

1219–1224

4

78