Effect of Acute Mild Exercise on Fear Extinction: Role of Hippocampal BDNF

Physical exercise is well known to benefit our brain functions, such as learning and memory. It has also been reported that exercise as an antidepressant could be an effective and cost-efficient treatment alternative for a variety of anxiety disorders (Carek et al., 2011). One molecule that may be involved in the anti-depressive effect of exercise is brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). A recent study showed that the anti-depressive effect of voluntary wheel running correlates with increased hippocampal BDNF in the depression model of mice (Sartori et al., 2011). Growing evidence also indicated that stress decreases the expression of BDNF in limbic structures and antidepressants exert the opposite effect in limbic brain regions involved in the regulation of mood and cognition (Duman and Monteggia, 2006). However, little is known about the BDNF effect on fear extinction.