Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Sagol Brain Institute, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2021;81(1):91-112. doi: 10.3233/JAD-201429.
Aerobic training has been shown to promote structural and functional neurocognitive plasticity in cognitively intact older adults. However, little is known about the neuroplastic potential of aerobic exercise in individuals at risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia.
We aimed to explore the effect of aerobic exercise intervention and cardiorespiratory fitness improvement on brain and cognitive functions in older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).
27 participants with aMCI were randomized to either aerobic training (n = 13) or balance and toning (BAT) control group (n = 14) for a 16-week intervention. Pre- and post-assessments included functional MRI experiments of brain activation during associative memory encoding and neural synchronization during complex information processing, cognitive evaluation using neuropsychological tests, and cardiorespiratory fitness assessment.
The aerobic group demonstrated increased frontal activity during memory encoding and increased neural synchronization in higher-order cognitive regions such as the frontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) following the intervention. In contrast, the BAT control group demonstrated decreased brain activity during memory encoding, primarily in occipital, temporal, and parietal areas. Increases in cardiorespiratory fitness were associated with increases in brain activationin both the left inferior frontal and precentral gyri. Furthermore, changes in cardiorespiratory fitness were also correlated with changes in performance on several neuropsychological tests.
Aerobic exercise training may result in functional plasticity of high-order cognitive areas, especially, frontal regions, among older adults at risk of AD and dementia. Furthermore, cardiorespiratory fitness may be an important mediating factor of the observed changes in neurocognitive functions.
有氧运动已被证明可促进认知正常的老年人的结构和功能神经认知可塑性。然而，对于有患阿尔茨海默病（AD）和痴呆风险的个体，有氧运动的神经可塑性潜力知之甚少。
我们旨在探讨有氧运动干预和心肺适能改善对遗忘型轻度认知障碍（aMCI）老年人的大脑和认知功能的影响。
27 名 aMCI 患者被随机分为有氧运动组（n=13）或平衡和力量训练（BAT）对照组（n=14），进行 16 周的干预。预评估和后评估包括大脑在联想记忆编码过程中的功能磁共振成像实验和在复杂信息处理过程中的神经同步，使用神经心理学测试进行认知评估，以及心肺适能评估。
有氧运动组在记忆编码期间表现出额叶活动增加，并且在额叶皮质和颞顶联合区（TPJ）等高级认知区域的神经同步性增加，而 BAT 对照组在记忆编码期间表现出大脑活动减少，主要在枕叶、颞叶和顶叶区域。心肺适能的增加与左额下回和中央前回的大脑激活增加相关。此外，心肺适能的变化与神经心理学测试的多项测试表现的变化相关。
有氧运动训练可能导致 AD 和痴呆高危老年人的高级认知区域，特别是额叶区域的功能可塑性。此外，心肺适能可能是观察到的神经认知功能变化的重要中介因素。
