Amyloid

Maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness modify Alzheimer’s

Exercise and physical fitness have been shown to moderate age-related regional brain volume changes in healthy older adults. However, little is known about the relationship of fitness to Alzheimer’s disease-related brain changes, particularly in areas that are predominantly affected early in the course of the disease, such as the hippocampus.
Robyn A. Honea, PhD, and colleagues from the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas investigated the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and regional brain volume in healthy older adults and those with early Alzheimer’s using MRI and a new neuroimaging analysis technique called voxel-based morphometry.
Nondemented (n=56) and early-stage Alzheimer’s subjects (n=63) aged 60 and over had MRI scans and fitness assessments based on peak oxygen consumption during a treadmill test. The researchers found that people with early Alzheimer’s in the study, and not healthy elderly, had a significant relationship between the size of key brain areas associated with memory (hippocampal and parahippocampal volume) and cardiorespiratory fitness, such that those with better fitness ratings had less atrophy and those with worse fitness ratings had more atrophy.
"We found that, in early-stage Alzheimer’s, cardiorespiratory fitness is correlated with regional brain volumes in key areas affected by the disease," said Honea. "This suggests that maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness may positively modify Alzheimer’s-related brain atrophy."
"A previous study by our group looked at whole brain volumes and fitness, giving us a clue that there was some relationship. This is the first study to get an inside look into specifically where these changes occur in the brain – we're able to locate the changes associated with fitness to the actual memory region, the hippocampus, which is a key area for Alzheimer’s-related atrophy," Honea added. ...http://www.medicalnewstoday.com