Fitness, but not physical activity, is related to functional integrity of brain networks associated with aging.

Greater physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with reduced age-related cognitive decline and lower risk for dementia. However, significant gaps remain in the understanding of how physical activity and fitness protect the brain from adverse effects of brain aging. The primary goal of the current study was to empirically evaluate the independent relationships between physical activity and fitness with functional brain health among healthy older adults, as measured by the functional connectivity of cognitively and clinically relevant resting state networks. To build context for fitness and physical activity associations in older adults, we first demonstrate that young adults have greater within-network functional connectivity across a broad range of cortical association networks. Based on these results and previous research, we predicted that individual differences in fitness and physical activity would be most strongly associated with functional integrity of the networks most sensitive to aging. Consistent with this prediction, and extending on previous research, we showed that cardiorespiratory fitness has a positive relationship with functional connectivity of several cortical networks associated with age-related decline, and effects were strongest in the default mode network (DMN). Furthermore, our results suggest that the positive association of fitness with brain function can occur independent of habitual physical activity. Overall, our findings provide further support that cardiorespiratory fitness is an important factor in moderating the adverse effects of aging on cognitively and clinically relevant functional brain networks.

Relating hippocampus to relational memory processing across domains and delays.

The hippocampus has been implicated in a diverse set of cognitive domains and paradigms, including cognitive mapping, long-term memory, and relational memory, at long or short study-test intervals. Despite the diversity of these areas, their association with the hippocampus may rely on an underlying commonality of relational memory processing shared among them. Most studies assess hippocampal memory within just one of these domains, making it difficult to know whether these paradigms all assess a similar underlying cognitive construct tied to the hippocampus. Here we directly tested the commonality among disparate tasks linked to the hippocampus by using PCA on performance from a battery of 12 cognitive tasks that included two traditional, long-delay neuropsychological tests of memory and two laboratory tests of relational memory (one of spatial and one of visual object associations) that imposed only short delays between study and test. Also included were different tests of memory, executive function, and processing speed. Structural MRI scans from a subset of participants were used to quantify the volume of the hippocampus and other subcortical regions. Results revealed that the 12 tasks clustered into four components; critically, the two neuropsychological tasks of long-term verbal memory and the two laboratory tests of relational memory loaded onto one component. Moreover, bilateral hippocampal volume was strongly tied to performance on this component. Taken together, these data emphasize the important contribution the hippocampus makes to relational memory processing across a broad range of tasks that span multiple domains.

The cortical structure of functional networks associated with age-related cognitive abilities in older adults.

Age and cortical structure are both associated with cognition, but characterizing this relationship remains a challenge. A popular approach is to use functional network organization of the cortex as an organizing principle for post-hoc interpretations of structural results. In the current study, we introduce two complimentary approaches to structural analyses that are guided by a-priori functional network maps. Specifically, we systematically investigated the relationship of cortical structure (thickness and surface area) of distinct functional networks to two cognitive domains sensitive to age-related decline thought to rely on both common and distinct processes (executive function and episodic memory) in older adults. We quantified the cortical structure of individual functional network's predictive ability and spatial extent (i.e., number of significant regions) with cognition and its mediating role in the age-cognition relationship. We found that cortical thickness, rather than surface area, predicted cognition across the majority of functional networks. The default mode and somatomotor network emerged as particularly important as they appeared to be the only two networks to mediate the age-cognition relationship for both cognitive domains. In contrast, thickness of the salience network predicted executive function and mediated the age-cognition relationship for executive function. These relationships remained significant even after accounting for global cortical thickness. Quantifying the number of regions related to cognition and mediating the age-cognition relationship yielded similar patterns of results. This study provides a potential approach to organize and describe the apparent widespread regional cortical structural relationships with cognition and age in older adults.

Active Experiencing Training Improves Episodic Memory Recall in Older Adults.

Active experiencing (AE) is an intervention aimed at attenuating cognitive declines with mindfulness training via an immersive acting program, and has produced promising results in older adults with limited formal education. Yet, the cognitive mechanism(s) of intervention benefits and generalizability of gains across cognitive domains in the course of healthy aging is unclear. We addressed these issues in an intervention trial of older adults (N = 179; mean age = 69.46 years at enrollment; mean education = 16.80 years) assigned to an AE condition (n = 86) or an active control group (i.e., theatre history; n = 93) for 4 weeks. A cognitive battery was administered before and after intervention, and again at a 4-month follow-up. Group differences in change in cognition were tested in latent change score models (LCSM). In the total sample, several cognitive abilities demonstrated significant repeated-testing gains. AE produced greater gains relative to the active control only in episodic recall, with gains still evident up to 4 months after intervention. Intervention conditions were similar in the magnitude of gains in working memory, executive function and processing speed. Episodic memory is vulnerable to declines in aging and related neurodegenerative disease, and AE may be an alternative or supplement to traditional cognitive interventions with older adults.

Differences in Brain Architecture in Remote Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is brain trauma from an external impact with a loss of consciousness less than 30 min. Mild TBI results in several biopsychosocial impairments, with pronounced cognitive deficits thought to resolve within 3 months of injury. Previous research suggests that these impairments are due to a temporary inability to appropriately allocate neural resources in response to cognitive demands. Our study questioned this assumption and instead hypothesized that mTBI was associated with long-term neural disruptions and compromised brain structure integrity. By extension, we investigated the likelihood that functional restitution and cognitive resolution following mTBI may be due to some form of neurofunctional reorganization. To this end, we examined abnormalities in resting state functional connectivity and structure (volume, thickness, and fractional anisotropy) in two groups of mTBI-those with 1-10 years time post-injury (mTBI1-10), and those with 20-65 years time post-injury, relative to age-, sex-, and education-matched controls. We observed abnormalities in brain architecture only in the mTBI1-10 group, characterized by functional hypo-activation in the right frontal pole, smaller frontal pole volume, and lesser fractional anisotropy in the genu of the corpus callosum that extended near the right frontal pole. This frontal region is laterally specialized to regulate function specific to socio-emotional processes. Collectively, neural disruptions and structural insult in mTBI may persist up to 10 years following injury, but injury-related pathology may resolve with longer recovery time. Disruption to frontal-dependent function that supports socio-emotional processes also may interfere with cognitive functioning, as in the case of chronic mTBI.

Brain Network Modularity Predicts Exercise-Related Executive Function Gains in Older Adults.

Recent work suggests that the brain can be conceptualized as a network comprised of groups of sub-networks or modules. The extent of segregation between modules can be quantified with a modularity metric, where networks with high modularity have dense connections within modules and sparser connections between modules. Previous work has shown that higher modularity predicts greater improvements after cognitive training in patients with traumatic brain injury and in healthy older and young adults. It is not known, however, whether modularity can also predict cognitive gains after a physical exercise intervention. Here, we quantified modularity in older adults (N = 128, mean age = 64.74) who underwent one of the following interventions for 6 months (NCT01472744 on ClinicalTrials.gov): (1) aerobic exercise in the form of brisk walking (Walk), (2) aerobic exercise in the form of brisk walking plus nutritional supplement (Walk+), (3) stretching, strengthening and stability (SSS), or (4) dance instruction. After the intervention, the Walk, Walk+ and SSS groups showed gains in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), with larger effects in both walking groups compared to the SSS and Dance groups. The Walk, Walk+ and SSS groups also improved in executive function (EF) as measured by reasoning, working memory, and task-switching tests. In the Walk, Walk+, and SSS groups that improved in EF, higher baseline modularity was positively related to EF gains, even after controlling for age, in-scanner motion and baseline EF. No relationship between modularity and EF gains was observed in the Dance group, which did not show training-related gains in CRF or EF control. These results are consistent with previous studies demonstrating that individuals with a more modular brain network organization are more responsive to cognitive training. These findings suggest that the predictive power of modularity may be generalizable across interventions aimed to enhance aspects of cognition and that, especially in low-performing individuals, global network properties can capture individual differences in neuroplasticity.

Moderate Physical Activity Mediates the Association between White Matter Lesion Volume and Memory Recall in Breast Cancer Survivors.

Increased survival rates among breast cancer patients have drawn significant attention to consequences of both the presence of cancer, and the subsequent treatment-related impact on the brain. The incidence of breast cancer and the effects of treatment often result in alterations in the microstructure of white matter and impaired cognitive functioning. However, physical activity is proving to be a successful modifiable lifestyle factor in many studies that could prove beneficial to breast cancer survivors. This study investigates the link between white matter lesion volume, moderate physical activity, and cognition in breast cancer survivors following treatment compared to non-cancer age-matched controls. Results revealed that brain structure significantly predicted cognitive function via mediation of physical activity in breast cancer survivors. Overall, the study provided preliminary evidence suggesting moderate physical activity may help reduce the treatment related risks associated with breast cancer, including changes to WM integrity and cognitive impairment.

Functional neuroimaging of visuospatial working memory tasks enables accurate detection of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

Finding neurobiological markers for neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is a major objective of clinicians and neuroscientists. We examined if functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data from a few distinct visuospatial working memory (VSWM) tasks enables accurately detecting cases with ADHD. We tested 20 boys with ADHD combined type and 20 typically developed (TD) boys in four VSWM tasks that differed in feedback availability (feedback, no-feedback) and reward size (large, small). We used a multimodal analysis based on brain activity in 16 regions of interest, significantly activated or deactivated in the four VSWM tasks (based on the entire participants' sample). Dimensionality of the data was reduced into 10 principal components that were used as the input variables to a logistic regression classifier. fMRI data from the four VSWM tasks enabled a classification accuracy of 92.5%, with high predicted ADHD probability values for most clinical cases, and low predicted ADHD probabilities for most TDs. This accuracy level was higher than those achieved by using the fMRI data of any single task, or the respective behavioral data. This indicates that task-based fMRI data acquired while participants perform a few distinct VSWM tasks enables improved detection of clinical cases.

Feedback associated with expectation for larger-reward improves visuospatial working memory performances in children with ADHD.

We tested the interactive effect of feedback and reward on visuospatial working memory in children with ADHD. Seventeen boys with ADHD and 17 Normal Control (NC) boys underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing four visuospatial 2-back tasks that required monitoring the spatial location of letters presented on a display. Tasks varied in reward size (large; small) and feedback availability (no-feedback; feedback). While the performance of NC boys was high in all conditions, boys with ADHD exhibited higher performance (similar to those of NC boys) only when they received feedback associated with large-reward. Performance pattern in both groups was mirrored by neural activity in an executive function neural network comprised of few distinct frontal brain regions. Specifically, neural activity in the left and right middle frontal gyri of boys with ADHD became normal-like only when feedback was available, mainly when feedback was associated with large-reward. When feedback was associated with small-reward, or when large-reward was expected but feedback was not available, boys with ADHD exhibited altered neural activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula. This suggests that contextual support normalizes activity in executive brain regions in children with ADHD, which results in improved working memory.

Competition and Cooperation among Relational Memory Representations.

Mnemonic processing engages multiple systems that cooperate and compete to support task performance. Exploring these systems' interaction requires memory tasks that produce rich data with multiple patterns of performance sensitive to different processing sub-components. Here we present a novel context-dependent relational memory paradigm designed to engage multiple learning and memory systems. In this task, participants learned unique face-room associations in two distinct contexts (i.e., different colored buildings). Faces occupied rooms as determined by an implicit gender-by-side rule structure (e.g., male faces on the left and female faces on the right) and all faces were seen in both contexts. In two experiments, we use behavioral and eye-tracking measures to investigate interactions among different memory representations in both younger and older adult populations; furthermore we link these representations to volumetric variations in hippocampus and ventromedial PFC among older adults. Overall, performance was very accurate. Successful face placement into a studied room systematically varied with hippocampal volume. Selecting the studied room in the wrong context was the most typical error. The proportion of these errors to correct responses positively correlated with ventromedial prefrontal volume. This novel task provides a powerful tool for investigating both the unique and interacting contributions of these systems in support of relational memory.

Higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels are associated with greater hippocampal volume in breast cancer survivors.

As breast cancer treatment is associated with declines in brain and cognitive health, it is important to identify strategies to enhance the cognitive vitality of cancer survivors. In particular, the hippocampus is known to play an important role in brain and memory declines following cancer treatment. The hippocampus is also known for its plasticity and positive association with cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). The present study explores whether CRF may hold promise for lessening declines in brain and cognitive health of a sample of breast cancer survivors within 3 years of completion of primary cancer treatment. We explored the role of cardiovascular fitness in hippocampal structure in breast cancer survivors and non-cancer female controls, as well as performed a median split to compare differences in hippocampal volume in relatively higher fit and lower fit cancer survivors and non-cancer controls. Indeed, CRF and total hippocampal volume were positively correlated in the cancer survivors. In particular, higher fit breast cancer survivors had comparable hippocampal volumes to non-cancer control participants (Cohen's d = 0.13; p > 0.3), whereas lower fit breast cancer survivors showed significantly smaller hippocampal volumes compared to both lower fit and higher fit control participants (Cohen's d = 0.87, p < 0.05). These results are the first to identify that CRF may protect the brain health of breast cancer survivors within 3 years of treatment. The present study uniquely contributes to the field of cancer and cognition and emphasizes the importance of investigating how individual differences in CRF play a role in brain changes of breast cancer survivors.

Physical Activity Is Linked to Greater Moment-To-Moment Variability in Spontaneous Brain Activity in Older Adults.

Higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and physical activity (PA) in old age are associated with greater brain structural and functional integrity, and higher cognitive functioning. However, it is not known how different aspects of lifestyle such as sedentariness, light PA (LI-PA), or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MV-PA) relate to neural activity in aging. In addition, it is not known whether the effects of PA on brain function differ or overlap with those of CRF. Here, we objectively measured CRF as oxygen consumption during a maximal exercise test and measured PA with an accelerometer worn for 7 days in 100 healthy but low active older adults (aged 60-80 years). We modeled the relationships between CRF, PA, and brain functional integrity using multivariate partial least squares analysis. As an index of functional brain integrity we used spontaneous moment-to-moment variability in the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal (SDBOLD), known to be associated with better cognitive functioning in aging. We found that older adults who engaged more in LI-PA and MV-PA had greater SDBOLD in brain regions that play a role in integrating segregated functional domains in the brain and benefit from greater CRF or PA, such as precuneus, hippocampus, medial and lateral prefrontal, and temporal cortices. Our results suggest that engaging in higher intensity PA may have protective effects on neural processing in aging. Finally, we demonstrated that older adults with greater overall WM microstructure were those showing more LI-PA and MV-PA and greater SDBOLD. We conclude that SDBOLD is a promising correlate of functional brain health in aging. Future analyses will evaluate whether SDBOLD is modifiable with interventions aimed to increase PA and CRF in older adults.

White matter integrity supports BOLD signal variability and cognitive performance in the aging human brain.

Decline in cognitive performance in old age is linked to both suboptimal neural processing in grey matter (GM) and reduced integrity of white matter (WM), but the whole-brain structure-function-cognition associations remain poorly understood. Here we apply a novel measure of GM processing-moment-to-moment variability in the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal (SDBOLD)-to study the associations between GM function during resting state, performance on four main cognitive domains (i.e., fluid intelligence, perceptual speed, episodic memory, vocabulary), and WM microstructural integrity in 91 healthy older adults (aged 60-80 years). We modeled the relations between whole-GM SDBOLD with cognitive performance using multivariate partial least squares analysis. We found that greater SDBOLD was associated with better fluid abilities and memory. Most of regions showing behaviorally relevant SDBOLD (e.g., precuneus and insula) were localized to inter- or intra-network "hubs" that connect and integrate segregated functional domains in the brain. Our results suggest that optimal dynamic range of neural processing in hub regions may support cognitive operations that specifically rely on the most flexible neural processing and complex cross-talk between different brain networks. Finally, we demonstrated that older adults with greater WM integrity in all major WM tracts had also greater SDBOLD and better performance on tests of memory and fluid abilities. We conclude that SDBOLD is a promising functional neural correlate of individual differences in cognition in healthy older adults and is supported by overall WM integrity.

Hippocampal volume is decreased in adults with hypothyroidism.

BACKGROUND: Thyroid hormones are important for the adult brain, particularly regions of the hippocampus including the dentate gyrus and CA1 and CA3 regions. The hippocampus is a thyroid hormone receptor-rich region of the brain involved in learning and memory. Consequently, alterations in thyroid hormone levels have been reported to impair hippocampal-associated learning and memory, synaptic plasticity, and neurogenesis. While these effects have been shown primarily in developing rats, as well as in adult rats, little is known about the effects in adult humans. There are currently no data regarding structural changes in the hippocampus as a result of adult-onset hypothyroidism. We aimed to establish whether hippocampal volume was reduced in patients with untreated adult-onset hypothyroidism compared to age-matched healthy controls. METHODS: High-resolution magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition with gradient echo (MPRAGE) scans were performed on 11 untreated hypothyroid adults and 9 age-matched control subjects. Hypothyroidism was diagnosed based on increased levels of thyrotropin (TSH) and reduced levels of free thyroxine (fT4). RESULTS: Volumetric analysis of the right and left hippocampal regions, using functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain (FMRIB) integrated registration and segmentation tool (FIRST), demonstrated significant volume reduction in the right hippocampus in the hypothyroid patients relative to the control group. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide preliminary evidence that hypothyroidism results in structural deficits in the adult human brain. Decreases in volume in the right hippocampus were evident in patients with adult-onset overt hypothyroidism, supporting some of the findings in animal models.

Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are beneficial for white matter in low-fit older adults.

Physical activity (PA) and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) are associated with better cognitive function in late life, but the neural correlates for these relationships are unclear. To study these correlates, we examined the association of both PA and CRF with measures of white matter (WM) integrity in 88 healthy low-fit adults (age 60-78). Using accelerometry, we objectively measured sedentary behavior, light PA, and moderate to vigorous PA (MV-PA) over a week. We showed that greater MV-PA was related to lower volume of WM lesions. The association between PA and WM microstructural integrity (measured with diffusion tensor imaging) was region-specific: light PA was related to temporal WM, while sedentary behavior was associated with lower integrity in the parahippocampal WM. Our findings highlight that engaging in PA of various intensity in parallel with avoiding sedentariness are important in maintaining WM health in older age, supporting public health recommendations that emphasize the importance of active lifestyle.