Differential effects of wheel running and treadmill exercise on spatial memory, adult hippocampal neurogenesis and the cerebrospinal fluid proteome in rats.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Preclinical animal experimental study
PubMed 41966520 · doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2026.110956
What was done
Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to eight weeks of either voluntary wheel running or treadmill exercise. The authors evaluated the comparative effects of both modalities on hippocampal-dependent behaviours (anxiety-like behavior, spatial memory), adult hippocampal neurogenesis, and changes in the cerebrospinal fluid proteome.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values, statistical metrics, or sample sizes. Both exercise paradigms produced modest anxiolytic effects and elevated levels of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein and calcitonin-related polypeptide-beta in the cerebrospinal fluid. Treadmill exercise alone improved spatial memory, whereas voluntary wheel running alone increased adult hippocampal neurogenesis.
Why it matters
The findings demonstrate that exercise-induced improvements in spatial memory can dissociate from adult hippocampal neurogenesis depending on whether the activity is voluntary or forced, identifying shared and divergent molecular signatures in the cerebrospinal fluid.
Limits
This study was conducted in male rats, limiting translation to female animals and humans. The abstract omits sample sizes and quantitative effect sizes, and the single eight-week endpoint may have missed molecular or proteomic shifts that peaked earlier.