Fig. 4.

Continuous diurnal spontaneous activity index, shown as a mean value (±SEM, please note that error bars are slightly dissociated to diminish their overlapping) in 3 h bins, was measured during the intervention in sedentary groups (a) and in running groups (with availability to run during the activity measurement, panel b). Measurement was done for 6 animals in each group, the exception being the water drinking ctrl-group from which 4 animals were measured. In panel (c), activity of sedentary animals is shown in a larger scale. Black-and-white bars near the x-axes indicate the lighting periods in the room (lights were on between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.). Daily handling of the rats occurred between 2–5 p.m. (rounded rectangle in line graphs a, b, c). In the panel (d), diurnal spontaneous activity (during one representative day, 24 h) is shown as divided into daytime and darkness (12 h). Number within each pie represents the group mean value of the sum of the total activity during daytime (12 h) or darkness, and the percentages show the distribution of the activity across circadian phases in each group. Differences between the groups were statistically assessed by the linear mixed model, * p < 0.05, difference between PD and crtl; # p < 0.05, difference between W and ctrl.