The effects of moderate running exercise and L-tyrosine on penicillin-induced epileptiform activity in rats

Abstract

Regular exercise and amino acid supplementation, popular approaches toward the reduction of epileptic seizures, have been extensively researched. This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of treadmill exercise and L-tyrosine treatment on the frequency and amplitude of epileptiform activity in rats. A total of 32 male albino Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups: control, exercise, L-tyrosine, and exercise + L-tyrosine. L-tyrosine was supplemented by oral gavage (500 mg/kg/day, 2.5 mL solution).The treatments were performed 5 days a week for 10 weeks. The rats were anesthetized and then administered 500 IU penicillin into the left cerebral cortex using a microinjector and electrocorticogram (ECoG) activity was recorded for 3 hours using a Power Lab data acquisition system. The frequency and the amplitude of the ECoG recordings were analyzed offline. Compared to the control group, spike frequency decreased significantly in all other groups. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of spike amplitude and latency. In this study, the effects of regularly administered treadmill exercise and L-tyrosine use on epileptiform activity were examined and evaluated together for the first time. The results of this study showed that regular exercise and L-tyrosine use decreased epileptiform activity. Further research and clinical trials are needed to investigate the extent to which L-tyrosine and physical activity interfere with the epileptic state by investigating different doses of L-tyrosine and different severity/ time/type of exercise protocols.

The Potential Role of Previous Physical Exercise Program to Reduce Seizure Susceptibility: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Animal Studies

“…Specifically, physical exercise reduced the spike/wave frequency in five studies (29-32, 36) and did not induce a significant alteration spike/wave frequency in another investigation (33). Concerning the spike/wave amplitude, four investigations reported a reduction (31,34,35,40), and six did not find significant alterations (32)(33)(34)(35)(36)40) following exercise.…”

“…Only studies that used exercise intervention before SE induction were included. Six studies used a treadmill (28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33), five studies used swimming (34)(35)(36)(37)(38), two studies used a running wheel (39,40), and two studies used combined exercise: one applied treadmill and swimming (41), and the other used running wheel and treadmill (42). The total duration of exercise ranged between 21 and 90 days.…”

“…The frequency ranged from five to seven times a week, and two studies did not report session frequency and duration (39,40). Among the chemoconvulsants used in the selected studies, two used pentylenetetrazol (34,35), five used penicillin (30)(31)(32)(33)36), four used kainic acid (37)(38)(39)(40), three pilocarpine (28,41,42), and one homocysteine (29). See details in Table 1.…”

“…From 15 included studies, 13 demonstrated that physical exercise reduced seizure susceptibility induced by different chemoconvulsants such as homocysteine thiolactone (HCT), pentylenetetrazole (PTZ), penicillin, kainite, or pilocarpine (28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41) and two studies revealed no significant difference in seizure susceptibility between the exercise and control groups (33,42), which suggests a potential protective effect of exercise against seizure susceptibility.…”

“…For this variable, six studies were included (28,29,32,35,41,42). A left-oriented test was adopted but inverting the order of the means MD n = x n,2 − x n,1 .…”