Dados do Trabalho

Título

EFFECT OF INVOLUNTARY AEROBIC PHYSICAL ACTIVITY ON MITIGATING NEUROCOGNITIVE DAMAGE FROM NON-SEVERE MURINE MALARIA

Introdução

Malaria is associated with neurocognitive sequelae, especially in cerebral malaria (CM), in humans and experimental models. Non-severe malaria (nSM) can also cause poor performance in learning and memory in humans, but such association was not reported in traditional nSM experimental models, except, as first reported by our group, in C57BL/6 mice infected by Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA), widely used for the study of CM, but treated with chloroquine for seven days from the 4th day of infection on, before the development of the brain neuropathology usually occurring between the 5th and 6th day of infection. In this model, neurocognitive sequelae related to long-term memory and anxiety-like behavior are observed and can be reversed after immune stimulation with type 2 immune response inducers, including vaccine used in humans against diphtheria/tetanus (Td). Other stimuli, such as physical activity (PA), can induce not only physiological and metabolic changes, but also potentially beneficial immunomodulation and neurocognition.

Objetivo (s)

Our proposal is to study the influence of early and late intervention of involuntary aerobic PA, combined or not with immune stimuli with Td vaccine, on behavioral, learning and memory processes in homeostasis and after experimental murine nSM; and to characterize the possible PA associated immunocytochemical/hormonal events, by analyzing peripheral blood and brain compartments of mice.

Material e Métodos

PbA infected and control group of C57BL/6 mice are treated with chloroquine, immunostimulated or not and submitted or not to PA practice, 14th or 80th after the end of treatment with chloroquine, on a motorized treadmill for 30 or 60 days (protocol used simultaneously to stimulate the immune system) followed by behavioral assessment for memory and anxiety-like analysis. In the first moment, the late effect of PA was analyzed.

Resultados e Conclusão

Preliminary data suggest that the group of infected-sedentary mice showed lower performance of long-term memory evaluated in the Novel Object Recognition Task and overt anxiety-like behavior detected in Light-Dark Task in relation to the control (non-infected submitted to PA or sedentary) and infected (submitted to PA) mice groups, indicating a possible reversal of neurocognitive damage by PA practice. Other experiments are being carried out to confirm this effect of physical activity combined with stimulation of the immune system after non-severe murine malaria.

Palavras-chave

Malaria, vaccine, physical activity and behavior

Agradecimentos

LPM/IOC-Fiocruz/Faperj