Effect of Voluntary and Forced Training with Royal Jelly Consumption on Learning and Spatial Memory of Rat Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

Background: One of the age-related disorders is Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) that impairs learning and memory. It appears that the use of non-pharmacological methods due to fewer complications can help improve the memory process. Objectives: The present study aimed to review the effect of voluntary and forced training with Royal Jelly (RJ) consumption on learning and spatial memory of rats with AD. Methods: We divided 46 rats with AD into seven groups of eight rats including (1) RJ, (2) voluntary training, (3) forced training, (4) forced training with RJ, (5) voluntary training with RJ, (6) control, and (7) sham. During eight weeks, groups 1, 4, and 5 received RJ 100 mg/kg daily; groups 2 and 5 ran on running wheels for three sessions of 60 min per week and groups 3 and 4 swam for three sessions of 60 min per week. Twenty-four hours after the last training session, learning and spatial memory were measured by the shuttle box and Y maze, respectively. Shapiro-Wilk, one-way ANOVA, and two-way ANOVA test with Bonferroni’s post hoc test were used for data analysis (P ≤ 0.05). Results: Training and RJ had significant effects on the increase of Step-Through Latency (STL) (P ≤ 0.05) and the Percentage of Alteration (PA) (P ≤ 0.05), as well as the decrease of Time spent in Dark Compartment (TDC) (P ≤ 0.05). Training and RJ consumption had a significant interactive effect on the decrease of TDC (P ≤ 0.05). Conclusions: It appears that training simultaneously with RJ consumption has interactive effects on improving memory in rats with AD.