Abstract
We developed a forced non-electric-shock running wheel (FNESRW) system that provides rats with high-intensity exercise training using automatic exercise training patterns that are controlled by a microcontroller. The proposed system successfully makes a breakthrough in the traditional motorized running wheel to allow rats to perform high-intensity training and to enable comparisons with the treadmill at the same exercise intensity without any electric shock. A polyvinyl chloride runway with a rough rubber surface was coated on the periphery of the wheel so as to permit automatic acceleration training, and which allowed the rats to run consistently at high speeds (30 m/min for 1 h). An animal ischemic stroke model was used to validate the proposed system. FNESRW, treadmill, control, and sham groups were studied. The FNESRW and treadmill groups underwent 3 weeks of endurance running training. After 3 weeks, the experiments of middle cerebral artery occlusion, the modified neurological severity score (mNSS), an inclined plane test, and triphenyltetrazolium chloride were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed platform. The proposed platform showed that enhancement of motor function, mNSS, and infarct volumes was significantly stronger in the FNESRW group than the control group (P<0.05) and similar to the treadmill group. The experimental data demonstrated that the proposed platform can be applied to test the benefit of exercise-preconditioning-induced neuroprotection using the animal stroke model. Additional advantages of the FNESRW system include stand-alone capability, independence of subjective human adjustment, and ease of use.
Highlights
Regular exercise is considered to be beneficial for the overall health of an organism in its normal and diseased states [1,2,3]
We developed a forced non-electric-shock running wheel (FNESRW) system that provides rats with high-intensity exercise training using automatic exercise training patterns that are controlled by a microcontroller
The modified neurological severity score (mNSS) value in the control group was the highest, and the mNSS values for the FNESRW group were significantly lower than those of the control group (Figure 7B; P,0.05). These results indicated that forced exercise preconditioning on www.bjournal.com.br the FNESRW was effective for stroke prevention
Summary
Regular exercise is considered to be beneficial for the overall health of an organism in its normal and diseased states [1,2,3]. An increasing number of studies have shown the beneficial effects of exercise on stroke-induced brain injuries in animal models [4,5]. 2 or 4 weeks of pretraining exercise on a treadmill reduces brain damage after ischemic stroke [8]. More animal experiments used 20-30 m/min as exercise preconditioning for the prevention of stroke than low-intensity training (15 m/min) [4,10,11,12,13]. These findings suggest that exercise preconditioning can produce neuroprotection from ischemic stroke and that this protection is manifested during reperfusion. An animal ischemic stroke model was triggered to validate the proposed system
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