Influence of a Pre- and Postconditioning Treadmill Exercise on Intracerebral Hemorrhage-induced Apoptotic Neuronal Cell Death in Rats

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a common cause of stroke, and it occurs mainly in the striatum, thalamus, cerebellum, and pons. Physical exercise is known to ameliorate neurologic impairment induced by various brain insults. In the present study, the influence of pre-and post-conditioning of treadmill exercise on spatial learning ability, the lesion volume, and apoptotic neuronal cell death in the striatum following ICH in rats was investigated. ICH in the striatum was induced by injection of collagenase using strereotaxic instrument. The rats in the pre-exercise group were scheduled to run on a treadmill before ICH induction for 2 consecutive weeks. The rats in the post-exercise group were scheduled to run on a treadmill after ICH induction for 2 weeks. The rats in the pre-exercise and post-exercise group were scheduled to run on a preconditioning treadmill exercise 2 weeks before ICH induction until postconditioning treadmill exercise 2 weeks after ICH induction, except the day of surgery. For this study, radial arm maze task, Nissl staining, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay, and immunohistochemistry for caspase-3 were performed. Our date showed that treadmill exercise suppressed the ICH-induced apoptotic neuronal cell death and decreased lesion volume in the stratum. Treadmill exercise also alleviated the ICH-induced impairment of spatial learning ability. Preconditioning treadmill exercise before the ICH insult and postconditioning treadmill exercise after the ICH insult showed similar effectiveness on the recovery of ICH. In this study, however, preconditioning exercise before the ICH insult and postconditioning exercise after the ICH insult showed the most potent effectiveness on the recovery of ICH.