• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.73-88
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• 2009

Objectives : Neuronal changes that result from treadmill exercise for patients with Parkinson's disease(PD) have not been well documented, although some clinical and laboratory reports suggest that regular exercise may produce a neuroprotective effect and restore dopaminergic and motor functions. However, it is not clear if the improvements are due to neuronal alterations within the affected nigrostriatal region or result from a more general effect of exercise on affect areas and motivation. In this study, we demonstrate that motorized treadmill exercise improves the neuronal outcomes in rodent models of PD. Methods : We used a chronic mouse model of parkinsonism, which was induced by injecting male C57BL/6 mice with 10 doses(Every 12 hour) of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (30 mg/kg) and probenecid (20 mg/kg) over 5 days. These mice were able to sustain an exercise training program on a motorized rodent treadmill at a speed of 18 m/min, $0^{\circ}$ of inclination, 40 min/day, 5 days/week for 4 weeks. At the end of exercise training, we extracted the brain and compared their neuronal and neurochemical changes with the control(saline and sedentary) mice groups. Synphilin protein is the substance that manifestly reacts with ${\alpha}$-synuclein. In this study, we used Synphilin as a manifest sign of recovery from neurodegeneration. We analyze the brain stems of the substantia nigra and striatum region using the western blotting technique. Results : There were no expression of synphilin in the saline-induced groups. The addition of MPTP(1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine) greatly accelerated synphilin expression which meant an aggregation of ${\alpha}$-synuclein. But, the MPTP-induced treadmill exercise group showed significantly lower expression than the MPTP-induced sedentary group. This means treadmill exercise has a definite effect on the decrease of ${\alpha}$-synuclein aggregation. Conclusions : In this study, our results suggest that treadmill exercise promoted the removal of the aggregation of ${\alpha}$-synuclein, resulting in protection against disease development and blocks the apoptotic process in the chronic parkinsonian mice brain with severe neurodegeneration.