Physical Exercise and Spatial Training: A Longitudinal Study of Effects on Cognition, Growth Factors, and Hippocampal Plasticity

Physical Exercise and Spatial Training: A Longitudinal Study of Effects on Cognition, Growth Factors, and Hippocampal Plasticity

Physical exercise has been suggested to improve cognitive performance through various neurobiological mechanisms, mediated by growth factors such as BDNF, IGF-I, and VEGF. Moreover, animal research has demonstrated that combined physical and cognitive stimulation leads to increased adult neurogenesi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 4239 - 13
Main Authors: Woost, Luise, Bazin, Pierre-Louis, Taubert, Marco, Trampel, Robert, Tardif, Christine L., Garthe, Alexander, Kempermann, Gerd, Renner, Ulrich, Stalla, Günter, Ott, Derek V. M., Rjosk, Viola, Obrig, Hellmuth, Villringer, Arno, Roggenhofer, Elisabeth, Klein, Tilmann A.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 09-03-2018
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:
59/57
631/378/1595/1554
631/378/1595/3922
631/378/1686
631/378/2649
Animal cognition
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor
Cognitive ability
Exercise
Growth factors
Hippocampal plasticity
Hippocampus
Humanities and Social Sciences
Insulin-like growth factor I
Longitudinal studies
Magnetic resonance imaging
multidisciplinary
Neurogenesis
Physical training
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Training
Vascular endothelial growth factor
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Physical exercise has been suggested to improve cognitive performance through various neurobiological mechanisms, mediated by growth factors such as BDNF, IGF-I, and VEGF. Moreover, animal research has demonstrated that combined physical and cognitive stimulation leads to increased adult neurogenesis as compared to either experimental condition alone. In the present study, we therefore investigated whether a sequential combination of physical and spatial training in young, healthy adults elicits an additive effect on training and transfer gains. To this end, we compared the effects of (i) eight 20-minute sessions of cycling, (ii) sixteen 30-minute sessions of spatial training, (iii) a combination of both, and included (iv) a passive control cohort. We assessed longitudinal changes in cognitive performance, growth factor levels, and T 1 relaxation of hippocampal subfields (acquired with 7 T MRI). While substantial physical and spatial training gains were elicited in all trained groups, longitudinal transfer changes did not differ between these groups. Notably, we found no evidence for an additive effect of sequential physical and spatial training. These results challenge the extrapolation from the findings reported in animals to young, healthy adults.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-19993-9