https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-02045-5
Regular Article
Exercise training protects cerebral blood flow autoregulation from the impairment by carotid stenosis in rats
1
State Research Center of the Russian Federation, Institute of Biomedical Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Khoroshevskoe Shosse 76A, 123007, Moscow, Russia
2
Faculty of Biology, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory 1/12, 119234, Moscow, Russia
3
Faculty of Basic Medicine, Medical Research and Educational Institute, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Lomonosovsky Ave. 27/1, 119991, Moscow, Russia
4
Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Bolshoy Karetny per. 19/1, 127051, Moscow, Russia
Received:
25
August
2025
Accepted:
23
October
2025
Published online:
29
October
2025
Physical exercise provides neuroprotection in global cerebral ischemia, but it remains unclear whether such an effect is associated with improved blood flow autoregulation. We studied autoregulation of cerebral blood flow in three groups of rats: control (CON), with bilateral carotid artery stenosis (CS), and with CS performed after 4-week voluntary wheel running (CS + Training). In the CS and CS + Training groups, both common carotid arteries were narrowed with silver clamps to decrease their volumetric blood flow (VBF) by 70–80%. Two days later, skull thinning was performed in urethane-anesthetized rats. Using LSCI, we recorded blood flow index (BFI) in the branches of the middle cerebral artery and in large pial veins and then calculated vessel diameter and VBF. Rats were sequentially bled 5 times (each of 5% of the circulating blood volume) from the inferior caval vein with 5-min intervals. Baseline levels of the mean arterial pressure as well as pressure drops during bleeding did not differ between the three groups. In CON and CS + Training rats, arterial diameter increased during bleeding, BFI and VBF were maintained. In the CS group, arterial diameter did not change, BFI and VBF decreased during bleeding. Similar intergroup differences were observed in veins, except that veins did not change their diameter with systemic hypotension. TBARS content in the parietal cortex was lower in the CS + Training group compared to the CS group. Thus, cerebral blood flow autoregulation in rats was disrupted by carotid stenosis and protected by 4-week exercise training, which may be associated with the suppression of oxidative stress.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-02045-5.
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Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
