Treadmill Exhaustion Test for Mice

Run to exhaustion treadmill performance test was performed at two-, four- and six-months post injection. Mice were exercised to exhaustion via treadmill (Columbus Instruments, Exer-6M Treadmill), as described previously [15 (link)]. Mice were acclimated to the treadmill prior to data collection. Mice were run to exhaustion with increasing treadmill speed by 1 meter/min each minute, starting at an initial 7 meter per minute velocity. Lanes have a shock plate that pulses at a frequency of ~3 Hz. Mice were considered at “exhaustion” level when they were unable to re-engage the treadmill for 3 seconds after resting on the shock-plate. Run duration was recorded and used to calculate the distance ran (2 months post-injection: NT-3, n = 12; UT, n = 11; 4 months post-injection, NT-3, n = 12; UT, n = 11; 6 months post-injection: NT-3, n = 11; UT, n = 8).