Table 3.

Morphology, receptors, or neurotrophins of neurons in response to exercise training in rodents.

Species	Exercise protocol	Intensity	Duration	Neuron affected	Functional modulated	Change in morphology, receptors, or neurotrophins	Reference
Rat	Treadmill	30 m/min, at a 5% grade, 2 h/day, 5 days/week	16 weeks	Lumbar motoneuron	Calcitonin gene-related peptide	↑	Gharakhanlou et al. (1999)103
Mouse	Voluntary wheel running or treadmill	60% of their maximum speed and then increased to 70%, 80%, and 95% of their maximum speed for 2-min intervals, the treadmill speed was increased by 0.8 m/min until the animal was fatigued	5 months	Gastroc muscle	SERCA1a and SERCA2a	↑	Morissette et al. (2014)104
Rat	Treadmill	2 h/day, 30 m/min, 5 days/week	10 weeks	Motoneurons innervating the slow-twitch soleus muscles	Soma area and total SDH activity	↑	Nakano et al. (1997)105
Rat	Treadmill	2 h/day, 30 m/min, at a 10% grade	16 weeks	Motoneuron	Membrane capacitance	↑	Beaumont and Gardiner (2003)10
Mouse	Treadmill	1 h/day, 14 m/min, at a 25° incline	8 weeks	Hippocampus and motor cortex	Complexity of dendritic branches and synaptic plasticity-related protein expression	↑	Feng et al. (2021)106
Mouse	Treadmill	5 m/min for 5 min, 10 m/min for 35 min, 12 m/min for 5 min, 15 m/min for 5 min, 18 m/min for 5 min, cool-down 5 min, 60 min/day, 6 day/week	3 weeks	Brainstem 5-HT neuron	The number of branch points, dendritic branches and length	↑	Ge and Dai (2020)16
Mouse	Treadmill	5 m/min for 5 min, 10 m/min for 35 min, 12 m/min for 5 min, 15 m/min for 5 min, 18 m/min for 5 min, cool-down 5 min, 60 min/day, 6 days/week	3 weeks	Lamina X interneuron	The number of primary dendrites and total dendritic length	↑	Chen and Dai (2022)15
Rat	Treadmill or voluntary wheel	Treadmill: 27 m/min at a 10° incline for 60 min, twice per day, 5 days/week	16–20 weeks	Motoneuron	5-HT1A, GABAAa2, and for SK2 from 16-week-trained, mGluR1 in the voluntary wheel-trained	↓	Woodrow et al. (2013)92
Rat (spinal transection)	Passive cycling	30–50 rpm, 1 h/day	3 months	Sacrocaudal motoneuron	5-HT2A, 5-HT7, and KCC2 expression	↑	Chopek et al. (2015)107
Mouse	Treadmill	25 m/min and 28 m/min, 60 min/day	2 months	Neuromuscular junction	The synapse size of NMJs	↑	Andonian and Fahim (1987)109
Rat	Treadmill	6 m/min for 8–12 min at the onset of training, at 15 m/rain for 20–24 min midway in the period, and at 22 m/min for 30–35 min during the last week, 5 days/week	6 weeks	Neuromuscular junction	The synapse size of NMJs	↑	Waerhaug et al. (1992)110
Rat	Treadmill	24 m/min, 20 min/day, 5 days/week	12 weeks	Neuromuscular junction	The synapse size of NMJs	↑	Deschenes et al. (1993)111
Mouse	Treadmill	28 m/min, 60 min/day, 5 days/week	12 weeks	Neuromuscular junction	Nerve terminals	↑	Fahim (1997)113
Rat	Treadmill or voluntary wheels	27 m/min at a 10% incline for 60 min, twice per day, 5 days/week	16–18 weeks	Dorsal root ganglion	MOR	↑	Paddock et al. (2018)114
					5-HT1A, tyrosine-related kinase receptor A and B, and DOR mRNA levels	↓
SCI adult rat	Treadmill	5–12 m/min for 15 min, twice a day, 5 days/week	6 weeks	Lumbar motoneuron	Total neurite length	↑	Wang et al. (2015)118
Guinea pig	Treadmill	12 days: 20 min/day in two 10 min periods; 5 days: 30 min/day in two 15 min periods; 2 days: 90 min/day in three 30 min periods; 10 days: 135 min/day in three 45 min periods	29 days	Motoneuron	Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and protein synthesis	↑	Edstrom (1957)119

Note: ↑ means increased; ↓ means decreased.

Abbreviations: 5-HT = serotonin; DOR = delta-type opioid receptor; GABA_Aa2 = GABA A receptor, subunit alpha 2; KCC2 = potassium-chloride cotransporter; mGluR1= glutamate receptor metabotropic 1; MOR = opioid receptor μ subunit; NMJs = neuromuscular junctions; rpm = revolutions per minute; SDH = succinate dehydrogenase; SCI = spinal cord injury; SERCA = sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium-ATPase; SK2 = small conductance calcium-activated potassium channel 2.