Exercise effect during pregnancy on brain nucleic acids of offspring in rats

Eighteen pregnant female Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to either a sedentary control, wheelrunning exercise, or a treadmill running condition group. The wheelrunning exercise rats were housed in individual exercise cages, while the treadmill running exercise rats were run on a motor-driven treadmill at 14.23 m/min on an 8% grade for 30 min/day 5 days/wk. The exercise commenced at least 1 week prior to pregnancy and continued to parturition. The wheel running and treadmill running conditions resulted in significantly (p less than 0.05) lower body weights in the dams. No significant differences were observed between the exercise and control groups for the number of pups delivered, the brain weight of the pups, or their body weight. Also, no significant group differences were noted for DNA, RNA, or protein from the brains of the pups. However, the pups of the treadmill running exercise dams performed significantly poorer on a measure of motor performance on a Rotacone.