ORF45-05 - Exercise Emerges as a Biologically Plausible Corrective Intervention for Male Sexual Behavior

Across these rat studies, exercise emerges as a biologically plausible “corrective” intervention for male sexual behavior impairments driven by obesity and (indirectly) stress, via neuroendocrine and neuromodulatory pathways.
In a high fat diet model, obese sedentary males showed profound sexual behavior disruption—particularly very low ejaculation frequency and markedly prolonged mount/intromission/ejaculation latencies—indicating reduced sexual motivation and performance. Six weeks of moderate treadmill exercise largely reversed these deficits, bringing copulatory performance closer to controls. This behavioral recovery paralleled increased Kiss1 (kisspeptin) and Kiss1R expression in brain regions linked to reproductive control and motivated behavior (hypothalamus, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and corpus striatum), supporting the idea that exercise can restore sexual function by strengthening kisspeptin driven GnRH signaling and re engaging the hypothalamo–pituitary–gonadal axis. Importantly, in normal diet rats, forced treadmill exercise tended to suppress kisspeptin/Kiss1R expression and shift some sexual parameters unfavorably, suggesting that exercise dose/intensity and the “forced/stressful” nature of training can influence outcomes.
Complementing treadmill data, irisin—an exercise responsive myokine—was administered after obesity and sexual dysfunction were established. Irisin improved multiple copulatory measures (notably shorter intromission and ejaculation latencies, more intromissions/ejaculations, and higher sexual performance indices), improved sperm motility/morphology, and mitigated obesity related testicular pathology while lowering circulating leptin. Centrally, irisin increased tyrosine hydroxylase and α1A adrenoceptor expression in the nucleus accumbens and medial preoptic area, implicating catecholaminergic facilitation within sexual motivation/performance circuits.
Finally, treadmill exercise in chronically stressed rats normalized affective/cognitive disturbances and monoamine/BDNF signaling, a resilience profile that could indirectly support healthier sexual motivation under stress.

Thank you to TUBITAK for the financial support.