P2‐161: Aerobic exercise promotes executive functioning and associated functional neuroplasticity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Vascular cognitive ischaemia (VCI) is a type of cognitive dysfunction, particularly executive functions, secondary to cerebrovascular pathology. Currently, VCI is considered the second most common cause of dementia in later age while many of the risk factors associated could be remedied via physical exercise. Nevertheless, few randomized controlled trials to date have specifically assessed the efficacy of exercise training on cognitive function in this high-risk group. Thus, we conducted a 6-month proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial of thrice-weekly aerobic exercise training (AE) among adults with mild sub-cortical ischemic VCI (SIVCI). This is a secondary analysis of a sub-set of participants who underwent functional MRI. Seventy-one adults (56-96 years) with SIVCI were recruited and randomized (1:1) to one of two experimental groups: 1) 3x/week AE or 2) usual care (UC). The AE classes were 60 minutes in duration and led by certified fitness instructors. Target heart rates were determined by the Karvonen formula. Participants of the UC group received an education seminar on nutrition once per month. SIVCI was confirmed by: 1) evidence of subcortical white matter lesions from neuroimaging; 2) a score of less than 26 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA); and 3) clinical assessment by neurologist. A subset of 21 participants underwent functional MRI using a 3T at baseline and trial completion. During scanning, participants performed the Flanker task (a standardized neuropsychological test for selective attention and response inhibition). After adjusting for age, global cognitive function, visual contrast ability, hip-to-waist ratio and functional comorbidity index, compared with the UC group, the AE group demonstrated significantly reduced reaction time at trial completion during the incongruent conditions with greater accuracy (Table 1; p<0.01). In addition, compared with the UC group, the AE demonstrated lower activation in the supramarginal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus at trial completion (Figure 1). Our results suggest that AE among adults with SIVCI can significantly improve cognitive performance of selective attention and response inhibition (i.e., faster reaction time, increased accuracy) and increase efficiency of brain activations. However, given the small sample size, future studies with larger sample will be required to confirm our findings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.018 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".