AUTHOR=Cohan Charles H. , Youbi Mehdi , Saul Isabel , Ruiz Alex A. , Furones Concepcion C. , Patel Pujan , Perez Edwin , Raval Ami P. , Dave Kunjan R. , Zhao Weizhao , Dong Chuanhui , Rundek Tatjana , Koch Sebastian , Sacco Ralph L. , Perez-Pinzon Miguel A. TITLE=Sex-Dependent Differences in Physical Exercise-Mediated Cognitive Recovery Following Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion in Aged Rats JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience VOLUME=11 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2019.00261 DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2019.00261 ISSN=1663-4365 ABSTRACT=

Stroke remains a leading cause of death and disability in the United States. No current treatments exist to promote cognitive recovery in survivors of stroke. A previous study from our laboratory determined that an acute bout of forced treadmill exercise was able to promote cognitive recovery in 3 month old male rats after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo). In this study, we tested the hypothesis that 6 days of intense acute bout of forced treadmill exercise (physical exercise – PE) promotes cognitive recovery in 11–14 month old male rats. We determined that PE was able to ameliorate cognitive deficits as determined by contextual fear conditioning. Additionally, we also tested the hypothesis that PE promotes cognitive recovery in 11–13 month old reproductive senescent female rats. In contrast to males, the same intensity of exercise that decrease cognitive deficits in males was not able to promote cognitive recovery in female rats. Additionally, we determined that exercise did not lessen infarct volume in both male and female rats. There are many factors that contribute to higher stroke mortality and morbidities in women and thus, future studies will investigate the effects of PE in aged female rats to identify sex differences.