Wheel-running activity modulates circadian organization and the daily rhythm of eating behavior

Abstract

Consumption of high-fat diet acutely alters the daily rhythm of eating behavior and circadian organization (the phase relationship between oscillators in central and peripheral tissues) in mice. Voluntary wheel-running activity counteracts the obesogenic effects of high-fat diet and also modulates circadian rhythms in mice. In this study, we sought to determine whether voluntary wheel-running activity could prevent the proximate effects of high-fat diet consumption on circadian organization and behavioral rhythms in mice. Mice were housed with locked or freely rotating running wheels and fed chow or high-fat diet for 1 week and rhythms of locomotor activity, eating behavior, and molecular timekeeping (PERIOD2::LUCIFERASE luminescence rhythms) in ex vivo tissues were measured. Wheel-running activity delayed the phase of the liver rhythm by 4 h in both chow- and high-fat diet-fed mice. The delayed liver phase was specific to wheel-running activity since an enriched environment without the running wheel did not alter the phase of the liver rhythm. In addition, wheel-running activity modulated the effect of high-fat diet consumption on the daily rhythm of eating behavior. While high-fat diet consumption caused eating events to be more evenly dispersed across the 24 h-day in both locked-wheel and wheel-running mice, the effect of high-fat diet was much less pronounced in wheel-running mice. Together these data demonstrate that wheel-running activity is a salient factor that modulates liver phase and eating behavior rhythms in both chow- and high-fat-diet fed mice. Wheel-running activity in mice is both a source of exercise and a self-motivating, rewarding behavior. Understanding the putative reward-related mechanisms whereby wheel-running activity alters circadian rhythms could have implications for human obesity since palatable food and exercise may modulate similar reward circuits.

Voluntary exercise contributed to an amelioration of abnormal feeding behavior, locomotor activity and ghrelin production concomitantly with a weight reduction in high fat diet-induced obese rats

“…The present study revealed that the induction of voluntary exercise in the obese rats had the potential to convert the abnormal rhythm of daily activity, including feeding disorder, to the normal rhythm. These findings are in line with a previous report indicating that wheel-running modulates the circadian organization and daily rhythm of feeding behavior in HFD-fed mice [30]. In the previous study, however, mice were able to freely access wheels in their cages every day for two weeks, in contrast to the three days every other week in our study protocol.…”

Circadian Insights into Motivated Behavior

“…For example, rats will decrease food intake for about a week after gaining access to a running wheel (Looy and Eikelboom 1989;Lattanzio and Eikelboom 2003). Eating a high fat diet can alter circadian rhythms of eating and activity, but these effects are mitigated by being able to exercise on a wheel (Pendergast et al 2014).…”

DNA damage and the circadian clock

“…A diet rich in fats rapidly alters the rhythm of ea ng behaviour in mice and the correla on between the phases of the central clock and the peripheral clocks [247]. The same is valid, albeit the physiological effects are generally opposite, for physical ac vity (in mice -wheel-running) [248].…”