Neuropathy is a common complication of diabetes mellitus. Syntaphillin is involved in the anchoring of mitochondria to microtubules. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of six weeks of endurance training on Syntaphillin expression in spinal cord tissue of rats with experimental diabetic neuropathy.

40 rats were randomly divided into four groups, diabetes control (DC), diabetes training (DT), healthy control (HC), and healthy training (HT). Induction of diabetes was performed by intraperitoneal injection of the Streptozotocin solution (45 mg/kg). Endurance training was performed for six weeks. Tail-Flick and Von Frey tests were used to measure thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia. The expression of Syntaphillin was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. The data were analyzed using two-way ANOVA.

Teal-flick and von-Frey tests showed that pain threshold was significantly reduced in diabetic groups compared to non-diabetic groups (p<0.05). After STZ injection, blood glucose in diabetic groups increased significantly compared to non-diabetic groups (p<0.05). At the end of the study, the weight of diabetic groups decreased significantly compared to non-diabetic groups (p<0.05). In addition, there was a significant difference in the expression of Syntaphilin between HT, DC, and DT groups with HC group (p=0.001), between HT and DT groups with DC group (p=0.001) and between HT group and DT group (p=0.002).

Endurance training improves neuropathic pain responses and increases the Syntaphilin expression in the spinal cord of diabetic rats. These findings can be considered as a treatment for the complications of diabetic neuropathy.