Gene Expression After Exercise Is Disrupted by Early-Life Stress
Date
2025-01-08
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Developmental Psychobiology
Abstract
Exercise can be leveraged as an important tool to improve neural and psychological health, either on its own or to bolster the efficacy of evidence-based treatment modalities. Research in both humans and animal models shows that positive experiences, such as exercise, promote neuroprotection while, in contrast, aversive experiences, particularly those in early development, are often neurologically and psychologically disruptive. In the current study, we employed a preclinical model to investigate the therapeutic benefits of exercise on gene expression in the brains of adult rats. Long Evans rats were exposed to maltreatment stress or nurturing care during infancy, with some rats later given voluntary running wheels as an aerobic exercise intervention from Postnatal Days 70 to 90. Our results showed that irisin gene expression, which promotes neuroprotection, was differentially affected by exercise and early exposure to stress. We add to a rapidly growing area of research on the neuroprotective benefits of exercise and shed light on important molecular mechanisms that may affect the efficacy of exercise in different individuals.
Description
This article was originally published in Developmental Psychobiology. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.70017.
© 2025 The Author(s). Developmental Psychobiology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Keywords
Bdnf, early-life adversity, epigenetics, exercise, Fndc5, irisin, prefrontal cortex
Citation
Campbell, T.S., Donoghue, K. and Roth, T.L. (2025), Gene Expression After Exercise Is Disrupted by Early-Life Stress. Developmental Psychobiology., 67: e70017. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.70017