Maternal Deprivation Induces Memory Deficits That Are Reduced by One Aerobic Exercise Shot Performed after the Learning Session

Figure 2

Maternal deprivation (MD) causes long-term memory deficits of object recognition (OR) memory. An acute aerobic exercise session is able to reverse these deficits. (a) The animals were trained in the OR task and tested 24 hours and 7, 14, and 21 days after; animals from some groups were submitted to familiarization of aerobic exercise in a treadmill (NMD+FAE, MD+FAE, NMD+AE, and MD+AE), and animals from some groups were submitted to an aerobic exercise session just after the OR training session (NMD+AE and MD+AE). (b) In the training session, the animals were exposed to two new objects (N), and animals from all groups explored about 50% of the total exploration time each one. (c) In the OR consolidation memory test (24 h), the rats were exposed to a familiar (F) and to a new object (N). The MD group was not able to distinguish the familiar from the new object in the test session but the MD rats familiarized to treadmill (FAE) and submitted to a shot of physical exercise (AE) were. When tested 7 (d) and 14 (e) days after training, neither the MD group nor the NMD group was able to distinguish the familiar and new objects. All rats that performed acute physical exercise were able to distinguish the familiar object from the new one. (f) After 21 days, only MD rats submitted to exercise present persistence of memory. The data are expressed as the of the percentage of total exploration time; for the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, considering a theoretical mean of 50%; per group. OR = object recognition test; NMD = nonmaternal-deprived rats; MD = maternal-deprived rats; NMD+FAE = nonmaternal-deprived rats submitted to aerobic exercise familiarization; MD+FAE = maternal-deprived rats submitted to aerobic exercise familiarization; NMD+AE = nonmaternal-deprived rats submitted to aerobic exercise familiarization and to an aerobic exercise session; MD+AE = maternal-deprived rats submitted to aerobic exercise familiarization and to an aerobic exercise session.

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