Acrobatic training prevents learning impairments and astrocyte remodeling in the hippocampus of rats undergoing chronic cerebral hypoperfusion: sex-specific benefits.
Ana Paula Rodrigues Martini, Livia Machado Schlemmer, Joelma Alves Lucio Padilha and 5 others
PMID 38939055WHAT IT FOUND
In rats with reduced brain blood flow, prior acrobatic training did not improve memory retrieval, although it improved learning and changed astrocyte responses.
This is animal evidence and does not show exercise benefits for human dementia.
Key findings
01Acrobatic training before carotid occlusion improved spatial learning in the water maze, while occlusion impaired learning.
02The memory probe did not show a significant difference in time spent in the target quadrant, although occluded rats needed more time to find the platform than sham rats.
03Acrobatic occluded rats had higher GFAP expression than sham groups, and acrobatic females had higher PARP expression than acrobatic and sedentary males.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study was done in rats with surgically reduced brain blood flow, not in people with vascular dementia or cognitive decline. The memory probe did not show a significant difference in target quadrant time, so the learning benefit did not clearly carry over to memory retrieval. Only 6 rats per group were used for tissue tests, and behavioral group sizes varied from 9 to 14 because 10 rats in each sex died after occlusion. The estrous cycle of female rats was not evaluated, so sex differences in astrocyte and behavior results may not be fully explained. The Discussion presents the work as preventing cognitive damage, but the paper does not test this in humans.
Declared interests
Financial support was received from Instituto Nacional Saúde Cerebral (INSC, No. 406020/2022-1)/CNPq, with fellowship support from CNPq and CAPES.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that acrobatic training prevents memory loss in people. This was a rat study, and the memory probe did not show better target quadrant time in trained rats.