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1 Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
2 Physiology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: keith.channon{at}cardiovascular-medicine.oxford.ac.uk.
Regular physical exercise has beneficial effects in many human disease states, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer and depression. Exercise training of genetically modified mouse models may provide insight into the molecular mechanisms which underlie the beneficial effects of exercise. There is currently relatively little understanding of the normal physiology of mouse exercise. In this paper we describe a novel computerised voluntary wheel running system capable of recording and analysing individual wheel rotations. Using this system we demonstrate that C57Bl/6 mice run considerable distances during the night in short bouts and at a preferred speed; the cruising speed. We find that the vast majority of running occurs around this cruising speed, which is close to the maximum speed at which the animal can run, but is significantly higher than the average speeds recorded by simple digital odometers. We describe how these parameters vary with exercise training and demonstrate marked sex differences in the patterns of voluntary exercise. The results of this study have important implications for the design and interpretation of both voluntary and forced exercise experiments in mouse models. The novel parameters described provide more physiological quantitative measures of voluntary exercise activity and training, and will extend the physiologic utility of exercise training as a phenotyping tool in genetic mouse models.
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