earticle

영어

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder characterized by seizure and loss of neuronal cells by abnormal rhythmic firing of neurons in the brain. In the present study, we investigated the effect of treadmill exer-cise on gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic neuronal loss in relation with neuronal activation using pilocarpine-induced epileptic rats. The rats were divided into four groups: control group, control and treadmill exercise group, pilocarpine-induced epilepsy group, and pilocarpine-in-duced epilepsy and treadmill exercise group. Epilepsy was induced by intraperitoneal injection of 320 mg/kg pilocarpine hydrochloride. The rats in the exercise groups were forced to run on a motorized treadmill for 30 min once a day for 2 weeks. In the present results, neuronal loss in the hippocampal CA1 region was increased after pilocarpine-in-duced seizure. Treadmill exercise inhibited hippocampal neuronal loss in the epileptic rats. Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD67) expression in the hippocampal CA1 region was reduced by pilocarpine-induced seizure. Treadmill exercise increased GAD67 expression in the epileptic rats. c-Fos expression in the hippocampal CA1 region was increased in response to epileptic seizure. Treadmill exercise inhibited c-Fos expres-sion in the epileptic rats. Epileptic seizure increased brain-derived neu-rotrophic factor (BDNF) and tyrosine kinase receptor B (TrkB) expres-sions in the hippocampus. Treadmill exercise suppressed BDNF and TrkB expressions in the epileptic rats. In the present study, treadmill ex-ercise prevented GABAergic neuronal loss and inhibited neuronal acti-vation in the hippocampal CA1 region through the down-regulation of BDNF-TrkB signaling pathway.