Treadmill Exercise Facilitates Functional Recovery and Neuroprotection in Subacute Stroke Rat

Abstract

Abstract-Treadmill exercise has been a controversial method to help stroke rat with functional recovery and neuroprotection. In this study, we investigated the effect of treadmill exercise on focal brain ischemia stroke rat in subacute phase. Twelve rats were induced focal ischemic stroke by a 60 min middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion surgery and then randomly divided into two group, control group (CG, n=6) and treadmill group (TG, n=6). TC rats received daily treadmill exercise training during the seven-day experimental period while CG rats did not receive any intervention. Daily functional test results were recorded and all rats were sacrificed for TTC staining on the 7 th day. The increase rate of behaviour score in TG is significantly higher than that in CG (P<0.05) and the infarct volume in TG is significantly smaller than that in CG (P<0.05). Results illustrated that post-stroke treadmill exercise can facilitate the functional recovery and provide neuroprotection in focal ischemic stroke rat in the subacute phase.Index Terms-Focal ischemic, MCAo, stroke rat, treadmill exercise.

Effects of skilled reach training with affected forelimb and treadmill exercise on the expression of neurotrophic factor following ischemia-induced brain injury in rats

“…In addition, effects of treadmill exercise have been studied in many researches for a long time. It has several beneficial effects such as motor function recovery and neuroprotection 12 ) .…”

“…Treadmill exercise has been studied as one of conventional treatments for a long time. In general, treadmill exercise is commonly applied to stroke patients thanks to its beneficial effect on neuroprotection 11 , 12 ) . To date, the only therapy approved by FDA has been thrombolytic tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) although approximately 80% of human strokes are classified into ischemic stroke 13 , 14 , 15 ) .…”