Kern Kathryn L, McMains Stephanie A, Storer Thomas W, Moffat Scott D, Schon Karin
Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Boston University Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States.
Center for Systems Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Nov 23;14:979741. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.979741. eCollection 2022.
Spatial navigation is a cognitive skill critical for accomplishing daily goal-directed behavior in a complex environment; however, older adults exhibit marked decline in navigation performance with age. Neuroprotective interventions that enhance the functional integrity of navigation-linked brain regions, such as those in the medial temporal lobe memory system, may preserve spatial navigation performance in older adults. Importantly, a well-established body of literature suggests that cardiorespiratory fitness has measurable effects on neurobiological integrity in the medial temporal lobes, as well as in other brain areas implicated in spatial navigation, such as the precuneus and cerebellum. However, whether cardiorespiratory fitness modulates brain activity in these regions during navigation in older adults remains unknown. Thus, the primary objective of the current study was to examine cardiorespiratory fitness as a modulator of fMRI activity in navigation-linked brain regions in cognitively healthy older adults. To accomplish this objective, cognitively intact participants ( = 22, aged 60-80 years) underwent cardiorespiratory fitness testing to estimate maximal oxygen uptake ( O) and underwent whole-brain high-resolution fMRI while performing a virtual reality navigation task. Our older adult sample demonstrated significant fMRI signal in the right and left retrosplenial cortex, right precuneus, right and left inferior parietal cortex, right and left cerebellum lobule VIIa Crus I and II, right fusiform gyrus, right parahippocampal cortex, right lingual gyrus, and right hippocampus during encoding of a virtual environment. Most importantly, in women but not men ( = 16), cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with fMRI activity in the right cerebellum lobule VIIa Crus I and II, but not other navigation-linked brain areas. These findings suggest that the influence of cardiorespiratory fitness on brain function extends beyond the hippocampus, as observed in other work, to the cerebellum lobule VIIa Crus I and II, a component of the cerebellum that has recently been linked to cognition and more specifically, spatial processing.
空间导航是一种认知技能，对于在复杂环境中完成日常目标导向行为至关重要；然而，老年人的导航能力会随着年龄增长而显著下降。神经保护干预措施可增强与导航相关的脑区（如内侧颞叶记忆系统中的脑区）的功能完整性，这可能会保留老年人的空间导航能力。重要的是，大量已确立的文献表明，心肺适能对内侧颞叶以及其他与空间导航相关的脑区（如楔前叶和小脑）的神经生物学完整性有可测量的影响。然而，心肺适能是否会在老年人导航过程中调节这些区域的大脑活动仍不清楚。因此，本研究的主要目的是检验心肺适能作为认知健康的老年人中与导航相关的脑区功能磁共振成像（fMRI）活动调节因素的作用。为实现这一目标，认知功能完好的参与者（n = 22，年龄在60 - 80岁之间）接受了心肺适能测试以估计最大摄氧量（VO₂），并在执行虚拟现实导航任务时接受了全脑高分辨率fMRI检查。我们的老年样本在虚拟环境编码过程中，右侧和左侧压后皮质、右侧楔前叶、右侧和左侧顶下小叶、右侧和左侧小脑小叶VIIa Crus I和II、右侧梭状回、右侧海马旁皮质、右侧舌回和右侧海马中显示出显著的fMRI信号。最重要的是，在女性（n = 16）而非男性中，心肺适能与右侧小脑小叶VIIa Crus I和II的fMRI活动呈正相关，但与其他与导航相关的脑区无关。这些发现表明，心肺适能对脑功能的影响不仅像其他研究中观察到的那样扩展到海马体，还延伸到小脑小叶VIIa Crus I和II，这是小脑的一个组成部分，最近已被证明与认知，尤其是空间处理有关。
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