By: Sydney Hall, Elizabeth Foreman, and Kelsey Wilcox
Faculty mentor: Dr. Parrish Waters
Abstract:
Regular performance of exercise can decrease levels of anxiety and depression (Binder et al., 2004). In this study, we aim to determine the behavioral changes in mice after 8 weeks of either voluntary wheel-running or sedentary. We measured levels of BDNF, a protein that stimulates brain health and improves mood, in the amygdala, as well as behavioral performance on two mazes. These mazes are the elevated plus and elevated zero maze, both assess anxiety in mice. During the final week of housing, after mice performed the elevated plus maze, we removed the running wheels from the cages to determine the effect of this change on behavior. We predicted that voluntary exercise would increase levels of brain BDNF and decrease anxiety-like behaviors in mice and removing the running wheel may attenuate these differences. Compared to sedentary mice, the wheel running group spent more time in the open arms of the elevated plus maze, suggesting decreased anxiety-like behaviors in these mice. After 1-week of no wheel access, we observed no difference in behavior on the elevated zero maze. We performed an ELISA to measure BDNF levels in the amygdala after the behavioral tests. Based on the results of the ELISA, there were no significant differences between sedentary and wheel running groups in BDNF levels in the Amygdala.
