Paternal physical exercise demethylates the hippocampal DNA of male pups without modifying the cognitive and physical development

Intergenerational influence of paternal physical activity on the offspring’s brain: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Six studies (Benito et al., 2018; McGreevy et al., 2019; Short et al., 2017; Yeshurun et al., 2017; Yin et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2017) were conducted on mice and the rest three ones used rats (Mega et al., 2018; Park & Kim, 2017; Spindler et al., 2019). The age of father was almost similar from 8 to 10 weeks (Benito et al., 2018; Mega et al., 2018; Short et al., 2017; Spindler et al., 2019; Yeshurun et al., 2017; Yin et al., 2013) but just three studies (McGreevy et al., 2019; Park & Kim, 2017; Zhang et al., 2017) were different and used 15, 12, or 4 weeks animals. The condition of the study was the same in six studies that had included the same temperature and dark/light cycle with but the two other ones (Benito et al., 2018; Yeshurun et al., 2017) were done under the special condition as a combination of physical and mental exercise called environmental enrichment, moreover, in one study (Zhang et al., 2017), the spatial training were used for fathers.…”

“…Overall, the animal exercise was conducted by the wheel running and the treadmill in three (Benito et al., 2018; Short et al., 2017; Yeshurun et al., 2017) and five (McGreevy et al., 2019; Mega et al., 2018; Park & Kim, 2017; Spindler et al., 2019; Yin et al., 2013) studies, respectively. The mothers of individuals were normal in all studies.…”

“…Recently, the potentiality of heritable paternal physical exercise effects has been of interest of researchers. Mega and his colleges illustrated the positive effects of paternal exercise on the development of the next generation (Mega et al., 2018). Moreover, a recent study examined the cognitive benefits of exercise training in adulthood not only to the own individuals, but also to its progenies.…”

Impact of parental exercise on epigenetic modifications inherited by offspring: A systematic review

“…Many of the genes found to be differentially methylated are implicated in metabolic functions, such as regulation of oxidative metabolism and glucose transportation, which have obvious significance for offspring. In addition to metabolism, exercise has also been shown to impact cognitive development, as hippocampal DNA methylation was found to be lower in exercise‐offspring (Mega et al, ). Hence, epigenetic intergenerational outcomes appear to be consistent with epigenetic alterations in hosts undergoing exercise.…”

“…While offspring of founders exposed to a high fat diet showed impaired glucose tolerance, exercise was able to rescue this impairment (Laker et al, ). When functional outcomes measured included cognitive changes there was no difference found between offspring of exercise‐founders versus sedentary‐founders (Mega et al, ). And while there were no differences found in rodent‐model offspring body weight, there was an inverse relationship found between moderate & intense prenatal‐PA and birth weight when studying human participants (McCullough et al, ).…”