Effects of Chronic Imipramine Combined With Swimming Exercise on Memory in Mice

Abstract

–The aim of this study was to investigate in mice the possible effects of imipramine treatment and/or swimming exercise in the animal’s models of anxiety and memory. The results suggest that imipramine treatment and/or swimming exercise induces an anxiolytic-like effect in mice in the elevated plus-maze and open-field tests. In addition, comparison within each group during the five days of Morris water maze test, showed a decrease of latency time us groups imipramine from the second day the testing, with increased in exploration ratio in both short and long-term object recognition memory. However, the mice previously exposed to swimming exercise did not differ from saline controls in the memory tests. The results provide evidence that swimming exercise prevents the increased in learning and memory improvement induced by imipramine treatment, while not influencing their anxiotytic effects; a fact that should be relevant to a better understanding of the combination of behavioral and pharmacological therapy. Keywords––Imipramine, Morris water maze, Object recognition, swimming exercise