Physical activity linked to greater mental flexibility in older adults

  • A correlation has been found between physical activity in healthy older adults and more variable resting-state brain activity.
  • More variable resting-state activity in older adults has previously been linked to better cognition.
  • No such correlation was found between cardiorespiratory fitness and resting-state brain activity.
  • The finding supports previous evidence linking higher levels of physical activity in old age with better cognition and brain health.

A study involving 100 healthy older adults (aged 60-80) has found that those with higher levels of physical activity showed more variable spontaneous brain activity in certain brain regions (including the precuneus, hippocampus, medial and lateral prefrontal, and temporal cortices). Moreover, this relationship was positively associated with better white-matter structure.

Higher rates of activity when the brain is “at rest” have previously been shown to be associated with better cognitive performance in older adults, especially in IQ and memory.

The brain regions showing this relationship all play an important role in major resting-state networks, including the default mode network, the motor network, and networks associated with executive control and salience detection. They are all highly connected.

Participants' physical activity over a week was measured using accelerometers. Cardiorespiratory fitness was also assessed. Participants were generally not very active and not very fit.

The findings add to evidence linking higher fitness and physical activity with greater brain integrity and higher cognitive performance. They are also consistent with previous studies showing an increase in such brain signal fluctuations among older adults participating in physical exercise programs.

Interestingly, level of brain activity fluctuations was only correlated with physical activity, not with cardiorespiratory fitness. This indicates that CRF and physical exercise cannot be considered as functional equivalents — there must be some aspects of physical activity not captured by a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness.

It's also worth noting that there wasn't a significant correlation between sedentary time and resting-state brain activity fluctuations, although this may be because the participants all showed not-very-dissimilar levels of sedentary time.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/uoia-slp082415.php

Reference: 

Burzynska AZ, Wong CN, Voss MW, Cooke GE, Gothe NP, Fanning J, et al. (2015) Physical Activity Is Linked to Greater Moment-To-Moment Variability in Spontaneous Brain Activity in Older Adults. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0134819. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0134819

Related News

Here’s a different aspect to

More findings from the long-running Mayo Clinic Study of Aging reveal that using a computer plus taking moderate exercise reduces your risk of mild cognitive impairment significantly more than you would expect from simply adding together these two beneficial activities.

The study involved 4,134 people (average age 59) who worked at the French national gas and electric company, of whom most worked at the company for their entire career.

I’ve mentioned before that, for some few people, exercise doesn’t seem to have a benefit, and the benefits of exercise for fighting age-related cognitive decline may not apply to those carrying the Alzheimer’s gene.

Data from the Women's Health Study, involving 6,183 older women (65+), has found that it isn’t the amount of fat but the type of fat that is associated with cognitive decline.

Interpreting brain activity is a very tricky business. Even the most basic difference can be interpreted in two ways — i.e., what does it mean if a region is more active in one group of people compared to another?

Damage to the retina (retinopathy) doesn’t produce noticeable symptoms in the early stages, but a new study indicates it may be a symptom of more widespread damage. In the ten-year study, involving 511 older women (average age 69), 7.6% (39) were found to have retinopathy.

Older adults who sleep poorly react to stress with increased inflammation

Data from the very large and long-running Cognitive Function and Ageing Study, a U.K. study involving 13,004 older adults (65+), from which 329 brains are now available for analysis, has found that cognitive lifestyle score (CLS) had no effect on Alzheimer’s pathology.

Previous research has been equivocal about whether cognitive training helps cognitively healthy older adults.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.