DETERMINATION OF THE SPONTANEOUS ACTIVITY OF RATS BY GRAVIMETRIC AND RELATIONS BETWEEN AEROBIC CAPACITY AND GENE EXPRESSION OF MCTS 1 AND 4: EFFECTS OF AGE AND PHYSICAL TRAINING.

Abstract

The spontaneous and voluntary activities are extremely important and reflect behaviors characteristics of animal life. However in laboratory animals, exposure to constraints (cages) and deprivation of their natural locomotor behaviors, may promote the induction physical inactivity and compete with improvements in aerobic capacity and anaerobic, in experimental models involving chronic physical exercise. Although the spontaneous and voluntary activities are widely studied in behavioral areas, these parameters are poorly associated to the natural aerobic capacity of rodents, especially the expression of MCT1 and 4. In this sense, the purpose of this project is based on the determination of voluntary activities (activity wheel) and spontaneous (system via gravity load-cells (strain gages). The running wheel in the cage will be installed to measure daily activity voluntary. The gravimetry system will consist of equipment capable of analyzing the responses of force on the cage generated by muscle action, independent of kinematic activity of the animals with 24 hours monitoring in acquisition frequency of 1000 Hz. Measurements of aerobic exercise intensities and are obtained by anaerobic lactate minimum test. Thus, it is expected to examine relationships between the spontaneous and voluntary activity on the aerobic capacity and gene expression of MCT 1 and 4 depending on age, physical training, free access to wheel activity and ample space in the cage.