CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Moderate exercise produces a great benefit on brain health and behavior. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of chronic aerobic exercise on age-dependent cognitive decline that may occur independently and in parallel with changes in hippocampal function. Rats were subjected to aerobic training in a motorized running treadmill throughout life. The discriminative ability to detect non spatial changes (substitution of a familiar object with a new one), and spatial changes (displacement of a familiar object) were studied in middle age (8 months) and old age rats (18 months) with standard spontaneous object recognition procedures. Trials consisted of 3 consecutive days of habituation in the Open Field, followed by sample and choice phases, separated by 24 h of delay. Middle age exercised rats showed greater exploratory and discriminative response to novelty. However, old rats showed large individual differences. In contrast, related to spatial and contextual changes, the greatest long-term effects of exercise on hippocampus-dependent spatial memory, were detected in old runners. We conclude that long-term, regular aerobic exercise has a positive impact on non-spatial and spatial components of declarative memory, especially in old rats.