the effect of voluntary exercise and prenatal exposure to sodium valproate on learning, memory, and anxiety of rats’ offspring

Background: antiepileptic drugs, such as sodium valproate(sv), are teratogenic as their usage by the pregnant motherhas been associated with an increased risk of major congenitalabnormalities in the fetus. in this study, the effects of voluntaryexercise and prenatal exposure to sv on learning, memory, andanxiety in rats’ offspring are investigated.methods: in the present study, 70 female albino wistar rats (200-240g) were used. the rats were categorized in seven groups: 1and 2, pregnant rats with exposure to sv (10 mg/kg/day i.p) 3and 4, pregnant rats with exposure to sv (20 mg/kg/day i.p) 5and 6, pregnant rats with exposure to normal saline (0.4 ml/dayi.p) and 7, pregnant rats with exposure to lamotrigine (20 mg/kg/day i.p). the even and odd groups were sedentary and voluntaryexercise groups, respectively. learning and memory were testedin male offspring using shuttle-box; anxiety was tested byelevated plus-maze (each group n=12). statistical analyses wereperformed using the one-way anova (the tukey test) and/ortwo-way anova on rank.results: the results showed that voluntary exercise in male ratscaused improvement of latency and duration time in the darkbox compared to sedentary groups (p=0.004). moreover, thegroup administrated with 10 mg/kg sv showed better learningcapability than the group administrated with 20 mg/kg sv.voluntary exercise could also improve anxiety (p=0.001).conclusion: this study indicated that exercise could increaselearning capacity and improve memories in rats’ offspring whosemothers were exposed to sv. voluntary exercise could improveanxiety too, and the effect was dose-dependent.