The Effects of Treadmill Exercise on Iron Accumulation and Microglia Activation in the Brain of APP-C105 Transgenic Mice of Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

PURPOSE This study is to investigate the effects of treadmill exercise on iron accumulation and microglial cell activity in the cerebral cortex of APP-C105 transgenic Alzheimer’s mice. METHODS The transgenic mice and their comparative non-transgenic mice at 24 months of age were divided into 3 groups: NTC (Non-Tg-Con, n=7), TC (Tg-Con, n=7), TE (Tg-Exe, n=7). TE group ran on the treadmill (30 min/day, 5 day/week) for 8 weeks. RESULTS The results show that treadmill exercise significantly improved spatial memory and cognitive function in TE group compared with TC group in Morris water-maze test and Passive avoidance test. In addition, TE group with treadmill exercise showed to decrease significantly in the accumulation level of iron, amyloid-beta protein, activated-microglia factor and pro-inflammation factor in comparison with TC group. anti-inflammation factor TE group was significantly increased than TC group. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that treadmill exercise has positive effects on cognitive function, iron accumulation level of iron and activated-microglia factor and it can act as a key role for clinical strategy in AD.

Keywords

• alzeheimer’s disease
• iron accumulation
• microglia
• amyloid-beta
• inflammation
• cognitive function