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Published on: December 22, 2016
Effects of acute physical exercise in the light phase of sleep in rats with temporal lobe epilepsy
Cristiano de Lima1, Ricardo Mario Arida2, Monica Levy Andersen1
1Department of Psychobiology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Objective:
Our aim was to investigate the influence of an acute exercise session on sleep pattern in rats with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).
Methods:
Twenty male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to 4 groups: control (C); acute exercise (EX); epilepsy (E) and epilepsy acute exercise (EEX). Two sleep electrocorticography recordings were performed during the light phase [baseline and day 2 (after the acute physical exercise session)]. After baseline recording, the exercise groups (EX and EEX) were submitted to an exercise session on a motor-driven treadmill at 12m/min for 30min. Twelve hours later, the rats were submitted to the second sleep recording.
Results:
At baseline, the E group showed a higher wakefulness and a lower Total sleep time, Slow Wave Sleep and REM sleep compared with the C group. After acute exercise, there was an increase in Total sleep time and Slow Wave Sleep and a decrease of wakefulness in EEX (+11.10%, +20.29% and -11.25%, respectively) and EX (+5.20%, +11.60% and -8.12%, respectively) groups.
Conclusion:
These findings suggest that acute physical exercise positively impacts the sleep pattern of rats with TLE, inducing a more consolidated sleep.
