Early exercise improves cerebral blood flow through increased angiogenesis in experimental stroke rat model

My therapists were afraid to push any type of challenging exercise at all. 24 hours after stroke would be quite a challenge to get someone exercising. It took me four days just to get to a regular room and I remember falling asleep talking to my first therapist, probably because I hadn't slept in 4 days. ERs are not great places to sleep.
http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/10/1/43/abstract

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Early exercise after stroke promoted angiogenesis and increased microvessles density. However, whether these newly formatted vessels indeed give rise to functional vascular and improve the cerebral blood flow (CBF) in impaired brain region is still unclear. The present study aimed to determine the effect of early exercise on angiogenesis and CBF in ischemic region.

Methods

Adult male Sprague Dawley rats were subjected to 90min middle cerebral artery occlusion(MCAO)and randomly divided into early exercise and non-exercised control group 24 h later. Two weeks later, CBF in ischemic region was determined by laser speckle flowmetry(LSF). Meantime, micro vessels density, the expression of tie-2, total Akt and phosphorylated Akt (p-Akt), and infarct volume were detected with immunohistochemistry, 2,3,5 triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining and western blotting respectively. The function was evaluated by seven point's method.

Results

Our results showed that CBF, vessel density and expression of Tie-2, p-Akt in ischemic region were higher in early exercise group compared with those in non-exercise group. Consistent with these results, rats in early exercise group had a significantly reduced infarct volume and better functional outcomes than those in non-exercise group.

Conclusions

Our results indicated that early exercise after MCAO improved the CBF in ischemic region, reduced infarct volume and promoted the functional outcomes, the underlying mechanism was correlated with angiogenesis in the ischemic cortex.

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