Abstract
The benefits of exercise and the element selenium on mental health and cognitive performance are well documented. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the intake of a diet supplemented with diphenyl diselenide [(PhSe)2] and the swimming exercise could enhance memory in old Wistar rats. Male Wistar rats (24 months) were fed daily with standard diet chow or standard chow supplemented with 1 ppm of (PhSe)2 during 4 weeks. Animals were submitted to swimming training with a workload (3 % of body weight, 20 min/day for 4 weeks). After 4 weeks, the object recognition test (ORT) and the object location test (OLT) were performed. The results of this study demonstrated that intake of a supplemented diet with (PhSe)2 and swimming exercise was effective in improving short-term and long-term memory as well as spatial learning, increasing the hippocampal levels of phosphorylated cAMP-response element-binding protein (CREB) in old rats. This study also provided evidence that (PhSe)2-supplemented diet facilitated memory of old rats by modulating cAMP levels and stimulating CREB phosphorylation, without altering the levels of Akt.