Effect of Physical Activity in Enriched Movement Environment on Clinical Score and Movement Impairment in Mice with Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis

Oral Presentation
Paper ID : 1355-SSRC
Authors
1Ph.D of Exercise Physiology, Department of Sport Science, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1300-6757
2Associate Professor, Department of Sport Science, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-3104-7584
3Professor, Department of Exercise Physiology, Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6507-6634
4Associate Professor, Department of Sport Science, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4665-5363
Abstract
Background and aim: Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is one of the most popular animal models of multiple sclerosis (MS) that causes clinical symptoms and movement disorders in animal models. Physical activities play a role in controlling and improving the symptoms of MS. In the present study, we investigated the influence of the 4 weeks of physical activity in enriched movement environment on the clinical score and movement impairment in mice with EAE. Method: This experimental study was conducted on thirty female C57BL/6 mice (age: 8 weeks and average weight: 18 ± 2). Mice were randomly divided into 3 groups of 10 including 1) healthy control, 2) Induction of EAE and 3) enriched environment. After induction of EAE with MOG35-55, the third group lived in an enriched environment for four weeks. The enriched environment consists of large cages, which provides social enrichment (the animals are placed in numerous groups per cage), physical enrichment (the cages contain running wheels for exercise) and cognitive and sensory enrichment (provided with a variety of objects to interact, tunnels and spaces). Clinical score were recorded daily from induction until 28 days (chronic period of the disease). Movement impairment was measured using the Rotarod test. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using one-way analysis of variance test at a significance level of less than 0.05. Results: Findings showed that activity in the enriched movement environment significantly improved the clinical score compared to the EAE group (P=0.001), while it did not change the movement impairment significantly (P=0.025).
Conclusion: It seems that changing the environment to an active lifestyle with social interaction can prevent the progression of the disease and it may be due to the regulating the expression of some genes regulating the immune system that needs to be more studies in future studies.
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