The aim of our study was to analyze the interrelation between the effects of exogenous testosterone and physical exercise on behavior in adult male rats. During two weeks, male Wistar rats underwent a gradual daily-increasing forced swimming exercise (trained, groups, tr) or not (non-trained groups, ntr) and were injected with testosterone (TSt groups) or solvent olive oil, control, Ctrl groups). The average swimming times until reaching the platform in the Morris water maze were significantly shorter in the TSt tr group as compared to other groups during the first day. Intergroup differences between the results from other behavioral tests did not reach the significance levels. Our results indicate that the combination of testosterone administration and physical exercise leads to improvement of spatial working memory. Further studies are needed to uncover the mechanism of this effect.
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Hodosy, J., Ostatníková, D., Kúdela, M. et al. Behavioral Effects of Physical Exercise and Exogenous Testosterone in Male Rats. Neurophysiology 44, 409–413 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11062-012-9312-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11062-012-9312-y