Background: The present experiment examined the ability of voluntary exercise (i.e., home-cage wheel running; HCWR) to ameliorate anxiety-like behavior associated with acute methamphetamine exposure in male, Swiss-Webster mice. Methods: Mice were permitted access to home-cage running wheels (Exercise), locked home-cage running wheels or no home-cage running wheels (Sedentary) for 6 weeks and then exposed to different methamphetamine doses (vehicle, 0.25, 0.5, or 1.0 mg/kg) once weekly during an 8 h open-field session for 4 weeks. Group differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity also were assessed by weighing adrenal glands. Results: It was found that HCWR ameliorated anxiety-like behavior after an injection of either the 0.5 or 1.0 mg/kg methamphetamine dose. Adrenal weights did not differ between Exercise and Sedentary mice. Conclusion: Taken together, these results suggest that voluntary exercise ameliorates the anxiogenic effects of methamphetamine depending on the dose, perhaps via a non-HPA mechanism.

Rauhut, Anthony S. Voluntary Exercise Ameliorates Anxiogenic Effects of Acute Methamphetamine Exposure in Swiss-Webster Mice. Pharmacological Reports 71 (2019): 1020-1024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pharep.2019.06.001

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