This study aimed to investigate the effects and potential mechanisms of exercise combined with an enriched environment on learning and memory in rats. Forty healthy male Wistar rats (7 weeks old) were randomly assigned into 4 groups (N = 10 in each group): control (C) group, treadmill exercise (TE) group, enriched environment (EE) group and the TE + EE group. The Morris water maze (MWM) test was used to evaluate the learning and memory ability in all rats after eight weeks of exposure in the different conditions. Moreover, we employed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to determine the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and receptor tyrosine kinase B (TrkB) in the rats. The data showed that the escape latency and the number of platform crossings were significantly better in the TE + EE group compared to the TE, EE or C groups (p < 0.05). In addition, there was upregulation of BDNF and TrkB in rats in the TE + EE group compared to those in the TE, EE or C groups (p < 0.05). Taken together, the data robustly demonstrate that the combination of TE + EE enhances learning and memory ability and upregulates the expression of both BDNF and TrkB in rats. Thus, the BDNF/TrkB signaling pathway might be modulating the effect of exercise and enriched environment in improving learning and memory ability in rats.

Previous cross-sectional studies have related aerobic fitness to inhibitory control and white matter (WM) microstructure in young adults, but there is no longitudinal study to confirm whether these relationships exist. We carried out a longitudinal study comparing aerobic fitness, inhibitory control, and WM integrity across time points, before versus after completing an exercise intervention in young adults (18–20 years old) relative to a control group. The exercise group (n = 35) participated in a 9-week exercise protocol, while the control group (n = 24) did not receive any regular exercise training. Behavioral data and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data were collected prior to and following the intervention. After the exercise intervention, aerobic fitness and inhibitory control performance were significantly improved for the exercise group, but not for the control group. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) of the DTI data demonstrated significantly increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the right corticospinal tract and significantly decreased FA in the left superior fronto-occipital fasciculus in the exercise group after the intervention versus before. The enhanced aerobic fitness induced by exercise was associated with better inhibitory control performance in the incongruent condition and lower FA in the Left superior fronto-occipital fasciculus (SFOF). Regression analysis of a mediation model did not support Left SFOF FA as a mediator of the relationship between improvements in aerobic fitness and inhibitory control. The present data provide new evidence of the relationship between exercise-induced changes in aerobic fitness, WM integrity, and inhibitory control in early adulthood. Longer-duration intervention studies with larger study cohorts are needed to confirm and further explore the findings obtained in this study.

To establish the characteristics of spontaneous neural activity during learning football juggling. We used fMRI to see which parts of the brain were changed by learning football juggling. Through recruitment, 111 college students (37 females and 74 males) were selected and randomly divided into football juggling (FJ) (n = 68, 23 females and 45 males) and a control group (CON) (n = 43, 14 females and 29 males). The FJ group learned football juggling 70 times, while CON had regular study sessions at the same time. Static functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure the dynamic changes of spontaneous nerve activity during learning football juggling. The result shows that the ALFF value in the right cerebellum 8 area was significantly higher than that before the 70 times of learning football juggling. The present study provides initial evidence that learning football juggling 70 times effectively increased the level of spontaneous neural activity in the cerebellum region. These promising findings provide new evidence to fully reveal the relationship between motion learning and brain plasticity.