| 29 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Physical activity decreases anxiety-related behavior in chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: functional behavioral study on the crossroad of experimental exercise physiology and andrology Nikola Šutulović 1 , Aleksa Zubelić 1 , Djuro Macut 2 , Milena Vesković 3 , Dušan Mladenović 3 , Aleksandra Rašić-Marković 1 , Željko Grubač 1 , Olivera Stanojlović 1 , Dragan Hrnčić 1 1 Institute of Medical Physiology “Richard Burian”, Belgrade University Faculty of Medicine, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia 2 Clinic of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Disease, University Clinical Centre of Serbia, Belgrade University Faculty of Medicine, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia 11000 Belgrade, Serbia 3 Institute of Pathophysiology “Ljubodrag Buba Mihailovic”, Belgrade University Faculty of Medicine, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia Recived: 29 September 2022 Revised: 15 October 2022 Accepted: 07 November 2022 Funding information: Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia (MNTR), grant number 200110, international grant FA4Lin by MNTR and TUBITAK. The corresponding author is MC member in EU COST Actions 20135 (TEATIME) and 20119 (ANDRONET). Copyright: © 2022 Medicinska istraživanja Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist Correspondence to: Prof. Dragan Hrnčić, MD, MSc, PhD Institute of Medical Physiology “Richard Burian” Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade Visegradska 26/II, Belgrade 11000, Serbia e-mail 1: dragan.hrncic@med.bg.ac.rs; e-mail 2: drhrncic@yahoo.com Summary Introduction: Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/ CPPS) is a infammatory syndrome, manifested by pain, voiding symp- toms, sexual dysfunction, and mental health issues including anxiety. Benefcial efects of exercise are known, but its infuence on CP/CPPS has not been investigated. This study aimed to determine the efects of chronic aerobic physical activity on anxiety-related behavior and pain in rats with experimental CP/CPPS. Material and Methods: Adult male Wistar albino rats (n=32) were ran- domly assigned to 4 groups (n=8 in each): Sham-SED (30-days seden- tary-SED protocol on treadmill and intraprostatic injection of 0.9% NaCl); Sham-PA (30-days physically active-PA protocol on treadmill and intra- prostatic injection of 0.9% NaCl); CP/CPPS-SED (30-days SED protocol on treadmill and intraprostatic injection of 3% λ-carrageenan); CP/CPPS- PA (30-days PA protocol on treadmill and intraprostatic injection of 3% λ-carrageenan). To establish pain dynamics, scrotal skin pain thresholds were measured by electronic von Frey aesthesiometer (evF) preopera- tively: 2 and 1 day, and also postoperatively: 2 nd , 3 rd , and 7 th day. Anxi- ety-like behavior was estimated by subjectiong the animals to the open feld (OF), elevated plus maze (EPM) and light/dark (L/D) tests at the same postoperative days as evF. Results: Rats that developed experimental CP/CPPS showed decreased mechanical pain threshold in the scrotal skin in all postoperative time points, in comparison to the Sham group. Also, in rats with prostatitis increased anxiety-like behavior was observed in OF, EMP and L/D test, compared to corresponding controls. Protocol of 30-day long exercise in rats with CP/CPPS led to reversion of anxiety-like behavior and in- creased scrotal pain threshold. Conclusion: Results of the present study showed that exercise pretreat- ment on the treadmill for 30 consecutive days led to the amelioration of anxiety-related and pain-related behavior in rats with CP/CPPS. Keywords: CP/CPPS, pain, anxiety, exercise, treadmill, rat Medicinska istaživanja 2022; 55(3):29-41 | DOI: 10.5937/medi55-40877 OPEN ACCESS Medical Research | Published by Faculty of Medicine University of Belgrade UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE УНИВЕРЗИТЕТ У БЕОГРАДУ МЕДИЦИНСКИ ФАКУЛТЕТ FACULTY OF MEDICINE Cite this article as: Šutulović N, Zubelić A, Macut Đ, Vesković M, Mladenović D, Rašić-Marković A, Grubač Ž, Stanojlović O, Hrnčić D. Physical activity decreases anxiety- related behavior in chronic prostati- tis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: functional behavioral study on the crossroad of experimental exercise physiology and andrology Medicinska istraživanja 2022; 55(3):29-41 10.5937/medi55-40877 iD Check for updates ISSN 0301-0619 | E-ISSN 0301-0619 www.medicinskaistrazivanja.med.bg.ac.rs iD iD iD iD iD iD iD