Cortical mechanism underlying aerobic exercise promoting cognitive function of vascular dementia rats:study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Zhang Xin-an

doi:10.3969/j.issn.2095-4344.2016.46.014

Abstract：BACKGROUND:Research on the mechanism underlying aerobic exercise improving cognitive function of rats with vascular dementia mainly focuses on behavioral observation and indicator detection in the hippocampus in vitro;however, there is a lack of in vivo experiments in view of the sensory and prefrontal cortex. METHODS/DESIGN:A randomized control ed animal experiment has been designed. Based on the synchronous nerve electrophysiology recording developed by our research group, the experiment is designed as fol ows:rats are trained firstly to make different reactions to different sounds, and are then modeled into vascular dementia. There are normal, vascular dementia, and vascular dementia undergoing short-, median-, and long-term aerobic exercise (treadmil/wheel) rats. Afterwards, the implantable microelectrodes are implanted into the auditory and prefrontal cortex, fol owed by the cognitive behavior training. The characters of rat cognitive behavior are observed, the electrical activity of sensory and prefrontal cortical neurons are recorded synchronously, the cortical experiment at molecular level is performed and the ultrastructure of brain tissue is observed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:This study investigates the cortical mechanism by which aerobic exercise improves the cognitive function of vascular dementia rats utilizing etiology, electrophysiology, molecular biology and histological technologies, aiming at providing feasible ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of relative mental and nervous system diseases. ETHICAL APPROVAL:This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shenyang Sport University. The disposal of rats was in line with the Guideline for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the Guideline of USA National Institutes of Health.