Long-term treadmill exercise inhibits the progression of Alzheimer's disease-like neuropathology in the hippocampus of APP/PS1 transgenic mice

• Treadmill exercise inhibits the progression of AD-like neuropathology in APP/PS1 mice.
• The regulation of APP processing is involved in exercise-induced decrease in Aβ deposition.
• Treadmill exercise attenuates AD-like neuropathology by inhibiting the activity of GSK3.

Previously our study has demonstrated that long-term treadmill exercise improved cognitive deficit in APP/PS1 transgenic mice of Alzheimer's disease (AD) paralleled by enhanced long-term potentiation (LTP). The present study was undertaken to further investigate whether the treadmill running could inhibit the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like neuropathology in hippocampus of the APP/PS1 mouse models of AD, and to define a potential molecular mechanism underlying the exercise-induced reduction in AD-like neuropathology. Five months of treadmill exercise resulted in a robust reduction in β-amyloid (Aβ) deposition and tau phosphorylation in the hippocampus of APP/PS1 mice. This was accompanied by a significant decrease in APP phosphorylation and PS1 expression. We also observed GSK3, rather than CDK5, was inhibited by treadmill exercise. These results indicate that treadmill exercise is sufficient to inhibit the progression of AD-like neuropathology in the hippocampus of APP/PS1 transgenic mouse model, and may mediate APP processing in favor of reduced Aβ deposition. In addition, we demonstrate that treadmill exercise attenuates AD-like neuropathology in AD transgenic mice via a GSK3 dependent signaling pathway.