Interferon-alpha-induced deficits in novel object recognition are rescued by chronic exercise

Fahey, B., Barlow, S., Day, J. S. & O'Mara, S. M. (2008). Interferon-alpha-induced deficits in novel object recognition are rescued by chronic exercise. Physiology and Behavior, 95(1-2), pp. 125-129. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2008.05.008

Abstract

The anti-viral drug interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) is widely-known to induce psychiatric and cognitive effects in patients. Previous work has shown that physical exercise can have a positive effect against brain insult. We investigated the effects of a clinically-comparable treatment regime of IFN-alpha on cognitive function in male Wistar rats and assessed the impact of chronic treadmill running on the deficits generated by IFN-alpha. We found that IFN-alpha induced significant impairments in performance on both spatial novelty and object novelty recognition. Chronic forced exercise did not protect against IFN-alpha-induced learning deficits in reactivity to spatial change, but did restore the capacity for novel object recognition in IFN-alpha-treated animals.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2008 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords:	Interferon-alpha; forced exercise; object learning; hippocampus; cytokine
Subjects:	R Medicine
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences

Preview

Text (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence) - Accepted Version
Available under License : See the attached licence file.
Download (299kB) | Preview