Effects of aerobic and anaerobic exercise on spatial learning ability in hypothyroid rats: a pilot study.
Sung-Hyun Park, MinYoung Song
PMID 28174480WHAT IT FOUND
In hypothyroid rats, anaerobic ladder exercise and aerobic treadmill exercise increased open field movement and reduced time to find a hidden platform.
Key findings
01After the experiment, thyroid hormone levels in the thyroid control, aerobic exercise, and anaerobic exercise groups were equal to those in the normal group.
02Open field movement increased after exercise compared with the control group, with a more pronounced increase in the anaerobic exercise group.
03Time to find the platform in the Morris water maze decreased after exercise, with greater reductions in the anaerobic exercise group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was in rats, not people, so it does not show what exercise does for a therapist's patients. The paper reported 11 male Sprague-Dawley rats, and 7 rats were divided into groups. The thyroid control group was left to do nothing, so natural recovery cannot be separated from exercise effects. Blood thyroid hormone was analyzed only before and after the experiment, so the timing of recovery could not be determined. Only male rats were used, and 6-propyl-2thiouracil was given in freely dissolved water, so doses were not standardized.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that exercise improves spatial learning or lethargy in people with hypothyroidism. The study used rats, had very small groups, and did not test human therapy.