The relationship between exercise and hippocampus PPAR gamma gene expression in experimental obesity model

Obesity is a disease which is complex, multifactorial but preventable and the prevalance of which increases over world. Obesity causes oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and insulin resistance, hence it results in cognitive impairment. Activated PPAR γ reduces the gene expression of the inflammatory mediators and the production of proinflammatory cytokines. Also, PPAR γ directly modulate the gene expression of antioxidants and prooxidants genes related to oxidative stress. By using convenient agonists, the activation of PPAR γ improves insulin sensivity in obesity. These functions of PPAR γ enhance the cognitive functions. Thirty-two wistar albino rats were used in the study. Obese groups were fed with high fat diet from the starting to the end for 16 weeks. Control+exercise and obese+exercise groups were exposed to an exercise training began at the nineth week of the study. At the last week, all rats' spatial reference memory was tested in Morris water maze. Then, all rats were sacrified under anesthesia and hippocampus tissues were isolated. By using Real-Time PCR, PPAR γ gene expression was investigated. In cognitive function test, rats in exercise groups showed better performance than rats in non-exercise groups and there was a statistically significant difference among these groups (P<0.05). This shows the benefical effects of exercise on memory improvement. The gene expression of PPAR γ increased in exercise groups when comparing to non-execise gropus but there wasn't statistically significant difference between groups (P>0.05). Finallly, it has found an increase in PPAR γ gene expression level of exercise groups. Depending on this increase, it has also identified a statistically significant difference in cognitive function in the exercise groups. These results give a cue of efficiency of exercise in the cognitive function's performance variations in obesity.