Exercise Modalities Improve Aversive Memory and Survival Rate in Aged Rats: Role of Hippocampal Epigenetic Modifications

Regular Tai Chi Practice Is Associated With Improved Memory as Well as Structural and Functional Alterations of the Hippocampus in the Elderly

“…Aging-related hippocampal shrinkage (atrophy) has been increasingly reported and has been associated with memory impairments and a strongly increased risk for the development of dementia and Alzheimer' disease (Jack et al, 2010;Small et al, 2011). Previous studies consistently indicated that hippocampal neuroplasticity (neurogenesis) could be induced by regular physical exercise, especially physical training (Cotman et al, 2007;de Meireles et al, 2019). Such exercise-induced biochemical changes in the brain region have been observed to associate with: (1) vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is beneficial for blood vessel survival and growth;…”

“…(2) insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 that can contribute to several neural and angiogenic process; and (3) increased serum levels of brainderived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) that is conducive to longterm potentiation and proliferation of neurons (Cotman et al, 2007;de Meireles et al, 2019). For example, a randomized controlled trial by Erickson et al (2011) indicated that 1year aerobic exercise training effectively contributed to a 2% increase of hippocampal volume that corresponded to improved spatial memory performance.…”

“…This increased size in this brain region was also positively associated with serum levels of BDNF, whereas older adults in the control group demonstrated nearly 1.5% hippocampal volume loss within this intervention period. Additionally, exercise may attenuate or even improve the aginginduced memory decline via histone modifications and alteration of gene expression (Elsner et al, 2013;Lovatel et al, 2013;de Meireles et al, 2019). Age-related epigenetic imbalances have been observed to associate with declined memory performance (Elsner et al, 2013;de Meireles et al, 2019).…”

Does Aerobic and Resistance Exercise Influence Episodic Memory through Unique Mechanisms?

“…It is possible that resistance exercise (vs. aerobic exercise) may have a greater effect on peripheral IGF-1 production, whereas aerobic exercise may have a greater effect on increasing BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) production [68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78]. Importantly, both aerobic and resistance exercise have been shown to increase BDNF concentrations/expression [79,80], which may be intensity-dependent [78,81]. However, research has yielded inconsistent results on the IGF-1 response to exercise [82].…”

Acrobatic exercise recovers object recognition memory impairment in hypoxic‐ischemic rats

“…One of these MST protocols is the acrobatic exercise (AE) which involves complex motor skill activities with the aim of stimulating motor control and also neuroplasticity abilities (Black et al., 1990; Confortim et al., 2019; Gutierrez et al., 2018; Jones et al., 1999; Tamakoshi et al., 2016). This type of training has improved the aversive memory performance related to hippocampus epigenetic mechanisms (de Meireles et al., 2019) and increased the synaptophysin levels and BDNF expression in different brain areas, indicating synaptogenesis (Garcia et al., 2012; González‐Tapia et al., 2016; Klintsova et al., 2004). Our recent study showed that AE alleviated the hyperactivity and anxiety state, which are very dependent tasks of the prefrontal cortex and striatum, in animals submitted to the HI (Confortim et al., 2019); however, the impact of AE on others variables such as cognitive function have not yet been investigated.…”