EFFECT OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE ON ADOPTIVE EXPERIMENTAL AUTOIMMUNE ENCEPHALOMYELITIS IN RATS

The aim of the study was to determine whether different programmes of exercise influence adoptive monophasic experimental auto-immune enceph alomyelitis (adoptive EAE), a paralytic disease mediated by T-cells. A doptive EAE was induced by the transfer of activated encephalitogenic T-lymphocytes into syngeneic recipients (Lewis rats, n = 85) and its d evelopment was followed by two independent observers. The results show ed that 2 days of severe exercise (250 and 300 min) performed after th e adoptive transfer of EAE slightly delayed the onset of the disease ( P <0.008) and the day of its maximal severity (P <0.016) without affec ting the overall severity of the disease, When this programme of exerc ise was performed before the cell transfer, it had no effect (P >0.05) . Two more moderate exercise programmes (5 x 120 min of running at con stant speed or 5 x 60 min of running at variable speed, 5 consecutive days) performed between the adoptive transfer and the onset of the dis ease did not modify the development of the clinical signs of adoptive EAE (P > 0.05). These results showed that severe exercise slightly inf luenced the effector phase of monophasic EAE and confirmed that physic al exercise performed before the onset of experimental auto-immune dis eases did not exacerbate the clinical signs.