Diversity of endurance training effects on antioxidant defenses and oxidative damage in different brain regions of adolescent male rats

Abstract

Studies on the effect of physical activity on brain oxidative stress, performed mostly in adult rats, have shown that moderate aerobic activity increases resistance to oxidative stress and reduces cellular damage. These effects can greatly differ between various brain regions. The postnatal period of the highest brain sensitivity to various stimuli is adolescence. We hypothesized that endurance training will modify brain antioxidant barrier differently in various regions, depending on their role in locomotion. Therefore, we studied the effect of moderate intensity endurance training on the activities of selected antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, gluthathione peroxidase and catalase and the contents of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (the key index of lipid peroxidation) and glutathione in several brain regions with dissimilar relationship to locomotion, as well as in circulating blood. Additionally, we investigated the effect of the training on nitric oxide synthase activity that may be a major player in exercise-related oxidative stress in brain regions that are directly involved in the locomotion control and execution (the striatum, midbrain and cerebellum). The training significantly enhanced nitric oxide synthase activity only in the latter three regions. Surprisingly, it elevated the activities of all studied antioxidant enzymes (excepting gluthathione peroxidase) in the neocortex, while no appreciable change in these activities was found in either the cerebellum (except for elevated catalase activity), or the striatum, or the midbrain. The training also elevated total glutathione content (a key protector of brain proteins under the conditions of enhanced nitric oxide production) in the cerebellum and striatum, but not in the other regions. The observed brain changes greatly differed from those in circulating blood and did not prevent the training-related increases in oxidative damage as evidenced by elevations in cerebellar and striatal thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances. These data suggest an increased susceptibility of adolescent brain to enhanced physical activity-related oxidative stress.