Exercise to Improve Hippocampal Connectivity and Learning in Older Adults
试验速览
- 阶段
- 不适用
- 状态
- 已完成
- 发起方
- 入组人数
- 122
- 试验地点
- 1
- 主要终点
- Change in Hippocampal-dependent Learning
研究概览
简要总结
Given the accelerating growth of older adults worldwide and the decline in cognitive function with aging, therapeutics that remediate age-related cognitive decline are needed more than ever. The proposed research seeks to better understand and enhance the detection of exercise effects on hippocampal network function and learning and memory, which decline with aging and Alzheimer's. Success would lead to new ways to detect benefits of exercise on cognitive aging and would lead to mechanistic insight on how such plasticity is possible while also informing prevention strategies.
详细描述
Animal models robustly support that exercise protects brain areas vulnerable to aging such as the hippocampus and that these benefits lead to better learning. In contrast, there are mixed findings from human studies on the cognitive benefits of exercise with healthy older adults. This contrast indicates there is still a lack of understanding for how exercise could change the course of cognitive decline in aging adults. However, no human studies have comprehensively tested exercise effects on cognition in older adults with learning tasks inspired from basic exercise neuroscience. The objective in the proposed research is to fill this translational gap by determining if different types of exercise improve the same kinds of learning in older adults that have been shown to improve in animal models by improving hippocampal function. This will bring the investigators closer to a long-term goal of determining how exercise protects the brain from adverse effects of aging in order to develop interventions that minimize age-related cognitive decline. The overall hypothesis is that exercise improves learning when it increases functional hippocampal-cortical communication that otherwise declines with aging. The investigators will test this in a sample of healthy older adults by determining if increases in functional hippocampal-cortical connectivity from exercise training improve learning on an array of tasks that require the hippocampus for acquisition of new relational memories compared to conditions of the same tasks that should not require the hippocampus for learning and memory.
研究设计
- 研究类型
- Interventional
- 分配方式
- Randomized
- 干预模型
- Parallel
- 主要目的
- Basic Science
- 盲法
- Double (Participant, Outcomes Assessor)
入排标准
- 年龄范围
- 55 Years 至 80 Years（Adult, Older Adult）
- 性别
- All
- 接受健康志愿者
- 是
入选标准
- •Eligible to participate in an aerobic exercise intervention based on the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire, and corrected vision of 20/
- •Approval from a physician that monitored electrocardiography (ECG) response during a maximal aerobic fitness test that is part of the second study visit described below.
- •Exercising less than 60 minutes a week for the past calendar year
排除标准
- •Not between the ages of 55 and 80 years old
- •Not fluent in English
- •Score < 20 (out of 30) on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)
- •Inability to comply with experimental instructions
- •Qualify as "high risk" for acute cardiovascular event by the published standards of the American College of Sports Medicine
- •Previous diagnosis of neurological, metabolic, or psychiatric condition, and no previous brain injury associated with loss of consciousness
- •Inability to complete an MRI
研究组 & 干预措施
Cardiorespiratory fitness training
Cardiorespiratory fitness training will be a 24-week supervised cycling program designed to improve cardiorespiratory fitness, with supervision directly from the research team. All participants will first receive a one-on-one orientation with an exercise training specialist that has been trained by Dr. Gary Pierce in monitoring an exercise program for healthy older adults. Training will start with a 5 minute-warm-up, 20 minutes moderate intensity cycling and 30 minutes light intensity cycling, and 5 minute cool-down per session, for 3 sessions/week. In each additional week, 6 minutes of moderate intensity cycling per session will be added, until the total time for moderate intensity is 50 minutes per session by the start of week 5 (with additional 5 minute warm-up and 5 minute cool-down).
干预措施: Cardiorespiratory fitness training (Behavioral)
Functional fitness training
Functional fitness training will be a 24-week supervised exercise program designed to focus on functional flexibility and mobility, with supervision directly from our research team. All participants will first receive a one-on-one orientation with an exercise training specialist that has been trained by Dr. Gary Pierce in monitoring an exercise program for healthy older adults. Training will start with a 5 minute-warm-up, 20 minutes of light intensity cycling and 20 minutes of dynamic stretching to increase range of motion and functional fitness, for 3 sessions/week. In each additional week, additional stretches will be added to maintain variety and improve flexibility of all major muscle groups.
干预措施: Functional fitness training (Behavioral)
结局指标
主要结局
Change in Hippocampal-dependent Learning
时间窗: Baseline, 24-weeks
Learning rate on constructs that have been examined in animal models including context acquisition, episodic associations, and spatial navigation. The primary outcome is reported for the spatial navigation task that is associated with hippocampal structure and function, which is learning in the wayfinding condition. We report change in slope for wayfinding learning trials. The slope is computed based on the proportion of items correctly recalled on a map, over four learning trials. For each trial, proportion correct can range from 0 to 1, and a higher number represents faster learning, which is better.
次要结局
- Change in Hippocampal-cortical Functional Connectivity(Baseline, 24-weeks)
- Change in Cardiorespiratory Fitness(Baseline, 24-weeks)
- Change in Hippocampal-cortical Functional Connectivity(Baseline, 30 minutes)
研究者
Michelle W. Voss
Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
University of Iowa