Effects of a Bicycling Intervention on Cognitive Skills and Cardiovascular Health

NCT02453178 | Completed DMC

• 1 other identifier: 201405837
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 33
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Although exercise is known to delay cognitive decline and decrease our risk of Alzheimer's Disease, there is a lack of understanding of how exercise protects the aging brain. The proposed research takes a novel approach to this problem by testing the concept that there are acute, direct effects of exercise in the same brain regions that are affected by chronic exercise training. If the investigators are successful, the acute paradigm will allow us to determine the critical exercise parameters that modulate brain function in humans using only a single exercise dose.

Conditions

Sedentary Lifestyle

Keywords

physical activity; aging; cognition; brain; exercise

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Functional brain network integrity: the strength of the correlation between fluctuating functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal in different brain regions of the Default Mode Network (DMN) and the Executive Control Network (ECN) at rest

  Resting state brain networks known to be vulnerable to decline with normal aging

  Change from baseline functional network integrity at 12-weeks

Secondary Outcomes (4)

• Motor learning rate

  Change from baseline learning rate at 12-weeks

• Explicit paired associates learning rate

  Change from baseline learning rate at 12-weeks

• Executive function composite measure

  Change from baseline executive function performance at 12-weeks

• Cardiovascular fitness measured as "Vo2 max" from a cycle ergometer test

  Change from baseline fitness at 12-weeks

Study Arms (2)

Steady state moderate intensity cycling

EXPERIMENTAL

Moderate intensity exercise training will be a 12-week supervised cycling program, with supervision directly from our research team. All participants will first receive a one-on-one orientation with an exercise training specialist that has been trained by Dr. Gary Pierce in monitoring an exercise program for healthy older adults. Training will start with a 5 minute-warm-up, 20 minutes moderate intensity cycling and 30 minutes passive cycling, and 5 minute cool-down per session, for 3 sessions/week. In each additional week, we will add 6 minutes of moderate intensity cycling per session, until the total time for moderate intensity is 50 minutes per session by the start of week 5 (with additional 5 minute warm-up and 5 minute cool-down).

Behavioral: Cycling

Intermittent cycling

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

The intermittent cycling group will come to the exercise lab for the same duration and frequency each week and complete primarily passive cycling such that a motor in the stationary bicycle moves the pedals for them. To maintain interest in this intervention, we will include short bouts of moderate intensity activity. The short bouts of moderate intensity cycling will be designed to be ineffective for substantially increasing cardiorespiratory fitness over the course of the intervention.

Behavioral: Cycling

Interventions

Cycling BEHAVIORAL

The experimental group will complete a 3 month exercise program that includes working up to cycling at a moderate intensity for 50 minutes/session 3 times a week. The comparison group will complete a 3-month exercise program that includes intermittent cycling (alternating between passive and moderate intensity) for 50 minutes/session 3 times a week. Both groups will exercise in our laboratory at Spence Labs, and will be supervised by an exercise trainer that is trained in working with elderly and special populations.

Also known as: Exercise

Intermittent cycling; Steady state moderate intensity cycling

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 60 Years - 80 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Eligible to participate in an aerobic exercise intervention based on the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire, and corrected vision of 20/40.
• Because our older adult sample is over the age of 40, we will also require completion of a detailed health history questionnaire and further eligibility for the exercise intervention will be determined following approval from a physician that monitored electrocardiography (ECG) response during a maximal aerobic fitness test that is part of the second study visit described below.

You may not qualify if:

• Not between the ages of 60 and 80 years old
• Not fluent in English
• Score \< 26 (out of 30) on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)
• Inability to comply with experimental instructions
• Qualify as "high risk" for acute cardiovascular event by the published standards of the American College of Sports Medicine
• Left-handed
• Previous diagnosis of neurological, metabolic, or psychiatric condition, and no previous brain injury associated with loss of consciousness
• Inability to complete an MRI

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Iowa: lead

Study Sites (1)

HBC Lab

Iowa City, Iowa, 52245, United States

Location

Related Publications (1)

• Voss MW, Weng TB, Narayana-Kumanan K, Cole RC, Wharff C, Reist L, Dubose L, Sigurdsson G, Mills JA, Long JD, Magnotta VA, Pierce GL. Acute Exercise Effects Predict Training Change in Cognition and Connectivity. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2020 Jan;52(1):131-140. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000002115.

  PMID: 31385912 DERIVED

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Sedentary Behavior; Motor Activity

Interventions

Exercise

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Behavior

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Motor Activity; Movement; Musculoskeletal Physiological Phenomena; Musculoskeletal and Neural Physiological Phenomena

Study Officials

• Michelle Voss, PhD

  University of Iowa

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 25, 2015
• First Posted: May 25, 2015
• Study Start: July 1, 2015
• Primary Completion: January 1, 2018
• Study Completion: January 1, 2018
• Last Updated: January 30, 2018

Record last verified: 2018-01

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share

Locations

US (1)