Zhou Ruixue, Wang Zhisheng, Zhou Bojun, Yu Zixin, Wu Chongyun, Hou Jun, Cheng Ken, Liu Timon Chengyi
School of Physical Education and Sports Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Dec 9;14:1040828. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.1040828. eCollection 2022.
This study aimed to examine whether aerobic exercise exerts mood-modulating effects through an estrogen signaling mechanism.
The experiment was divided into two parts. The first part is to compare the three modeling methods to obtain the most obvious method of depression-like phenotype for further study in the second part. The first part of ovariectomized rats (age, 13 weeks) was tested when rats were 14 or 22 weeks old or in the sixth week after 3 weeks of chronic restraint stress. The second part was to treat the animals with the most obvious depression-like phenotype in different ways, placebo treatment or estradiol (E2) replacement therapy was administered, aerobic training, or estrogen receptor antagonist treatment. The cognitive (Barnes maze and 3-chamber social tests), anxiety-like (open-field and elevated plus maze tests) and depression-like (sucrose preference and forced swim tests) behaviors of rats in both parts were analyzed to study the effects of estrogen depletion and aerobic exercise.
Rats did not develop depressive symptoms immediately after ovariectomy, however, the symptoms became more pronounced with a gradual decrease in ovarian hormone levels. Compared with the placebo or control groups, the exercise and E2 groups showed improved performance in all behavioral test tasks, and the antidepressant effects of aerobic exercise were comparable to those of estrogen. Moreover, the estrogen receptor antagonist has markedly inhibited the antidepressant effects of aerobic exercise.
Estrogen receptors may mediate the antidepressant effects of aerobic exercise. In addition, an increasingly fragile ovarian hormonal environment may underlies chronic restraint stress-induced depression.
本研究旨在探讨有氧运动是否通过雌激素信号机制发挥情绪调节作用。
实验分为两部分。第一部分是比较三种造模方法，以获得最明显的抑郁样表型方法，用于第二部分的进一步研究。第一部分将卵巢切除的大鼠（年龄13周）在14周龄、22周龄或慢性束缚应激3周后的第6周进行测试。第二部分是以不同方式处理具有最明显抑郁样表型的动物，给予安慰剂治疗或雌二醇（E2）替代疗法、进行有氧训练或给予雌激素受体拮抗剂治疗。分析两部分实验中大鼠的认知行为（巴恩斯迷宫和三室社交测试）、焦虑样行为（旷场和高架十字迷宫测试）和抑郁样行为（蔗糖偏好和强迫游泳测试），以研究雌激素缺乏和有氧运动的影响。
卵巢切除术后大鼠并未立即出现抑郁症状，然而，随着卵巢激素水平逐渐下降，症状变得更加明显。与安慰剂或对照组相比，运动组和E2组在所有行为测试任务中表现均有所改善，有氧运动的抗抑郁作用与雌激素相当。此外，雌激素受体拮抗剂显著抑制了有氧运动的抗抑郁作用。
雌激素受体可能介导有氧运动的抗抑郁作用。此外，日益脆弱的卵巢激素环境可能是慢性束缚应激诱导抑郁的基础。
