Effects of acute and chronic physical activity on Spatial Pattern Separation in humans

DANIELA RAMIREZ BUTAVAND; MARÍA F. RODRÍGUEZ; MARÍA V. CIFUENTES; MARCOS G. LAZO; CRISTIAN GARCÍA BAUZA; PEDRO BEKINSCHTEIN; BALLARINI, FABRICIO MATIAS

Jornada; Congreso Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias; 2019

Abstract: The computational process for differentiating similar input patterns has been referred to as pattern separation. It has been reported that BDNF expression in the dentate gyrus is required for memory consolidation of similar, but not dissimilar, spatial representations. Also, several studies showed that exercise can regulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis, which is known to benefit Spatial Pattern Separation in rodents. For these reasons, in this work, we developed a task in an immersive Virtual Reality environment to assess spatial pattern separation and the effect of exercise on this phenomenon. The task consisted on testing the long-term memory with a variable pattern separation load. This was achieved using a similar and dissimilar conditions, where the position of two flags were separated by 20° and 40°, respectively. First, we evaluated the effect of acute physical activity (Acute) on the consolidation of similar and dissimilar conditions and test them 24 hours later. Also, we studied the phenomenon in a population of athletes (Chronic). Our results showed a significant improvement in memory in the Acute group only in the similar condition compared to the Control group (video of someone exercising). In addition, we observed a trend towards a better performance in the Chronic group, but the difference was not significant.The translational implication of this paradigm could certainly impact on the knowledge of the biological bases of human cognition and mental health.