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EFFECT OF EXERCISE ON MEMORY IN A MODEL OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE, TgF344-AD

L French
S Hall

Abstract

L. French, S. Hall

Boise State University, Boise, ID

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative brain disease characterized by the accumulation of tau protein inside the neurons of the brain and amyloid-β outside of the neurons of the brain, and it is often accompanied with progressive memory loss. In previous studies of animal models of AD, exercise was shown to delay memory decline. The TgF344-AD rat model of AD has successfully demonstrated memory impairment in past studies, but the effects of exercise on this animal model have not yet been discovered. PURPOSE: To understand the effect of exercise on memory in this novel rat model of AD. METHODS: In this study, we genotyped the animals for the AD genes APP and PSEN1. AD animals and their wild type (WT) littermates were then randomly assigned to treadmill trained (T) or sedentary (S). The treadmill training groups then underwent training 5 days a week for four months on a progressive protocol. Their memory performance was assessed using the Morris Water Maze Test at 16 months of age. RESULTS: While there were no statistically significant results, the best and average latency times for AD-S (2.81 and 15.64 s) were higher than WT-S (1.88 and 12.62 s) and AD-T (2.58 and 10.15 s) demonstrating a trend toward significance. CONCLUSION: The rats with AD genes seemed to have worse memory performance exhibiting memory decline, and treadmill training did seem to delay the memory decline because AD-T had lower latency times than the AD-S. This study lends to the expectation that further analysis of 17 or 18-month data may reveal statistically significant results.

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