Exercise-training in young Drosophila melanogaster reduces age-related decline in mobility and cardiac performance.

ABSTRACT: Declining mobility is a major concern, as well as a major source of health care costs, among the elderly population. Lack of mobility is a primary cause of entry into managed care facilities, and a contributing factor to the frequency of damaging falls. Exercise-based therapies have shown great promise in sustaining mobility in elderly patients, as well as in rodent models. However, the genetic basis of the changing physiological responses to exercise during aging is not well understood. Here, we describe the first exercise-training paradigm in an invertebrate genetic model system. Flies are exercised by a mechanized platform, known as the Power Tower, that rapidly, repeatedly, induces their innate instinct for negative geotaxis. When young flies are subjected to a carefully controlled, ra

SUBMITTER: Piazza N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2691613 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature