Acute exercise alters brain glucose metabolism in aging and Alzheimer's disease.

There is evidence that aerobic exercise improves brain health. Benefits may be modulated by acute physiological responses to exercise, but this has not been well characterized in older or cognitively impaired adults. The randomized controlled trial 'AEROBIC' (NCT04299308) enrolled 60 older adults who were cognitively healthy (n = 30) or cognitively impaired (n = 30) to characterize the acute brain responses to moderate [45-55% heart rate reserve (HRR)] and higher (65-75% HRR) intensity acute exercise.

Methods to characterize lactate turnover in aging and Alzheimer's disease; The LEAN study.

Background: There is evidence that chronic exercise can benefit the brain, but the effects vary markedly between studies. One potential mechanism for exercise-related benefit is the increase in systemic lactate concentration that is well-characterized to occur during exercise. Lactate is known to cross the blood brain barrier and can be used readily as a fuel for neurons.

Biomarker Responses to Acute Exercise and Relationship with Brain Blood Flow.

Background: There is evidence that aerobic exercise is beneficial for brain health, but these effects are variable between individuals and the underlying mechanisms that modulate these benefits remain unclear.

Objective: We sought to characterize the acute physiological response of bioenergetic and neurotrophic blood biomarkers to exercise in cognitively healthy older adults, as well as relationships with brain blood flow.

Methods: We measured exercise-induced changes in lactate, which has been linked to brain blood flow, as well brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a neurotrophin related to brain health.

Blood Biomarkers Discriminate Cerebral Amyloid Status and Cognitive Diagnosis when Collected with ACD-A Anticoagulant.

Background: The development of biomarkers that are easy to collect, process, and store is a major goal of research on current Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and underlies the growing interest in plasma biomarkers. Biomarkers with these qualities will improve diagnosis and allow for better monitoring of therapeutic interventions. However, blood collection strategies have historically differed between studies.

Increased Functional Connectivity of the Precuneus in Individuals with a Family History of Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: First-degree relatives of individuals with late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) have increased risk for AD, with children of affected parents at an especially high risk.

Objective: We aimed to investigate default mode network connectivity, medial temporal cortex volume, and cognition in cognitively healthy (CH) individuals with (FH+) and without (FH-) a family history of AD, alongside amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and AD individuals, to determine the context and directionality of dysfunction in at-risk individuals. Our primary hypothesis was that there would be a linear decline (CH FH- > CH FH+ > aMCI > AD) within the risk groups on all measures of AD risk.

Relationship of fasting glucose and longitudinal Alzheimer's disease imaging markers.

Introduction: Fasting glucose increases with age and is linked to modifiable Alzheimer's disease risk factors such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Methods: We leveraged available biospecimens and neuroimaging measures collected during the Alzheimer's Prevention Through Exercise (APEx) trial (n = 105) to examine the longitudinal relationship between change in blood glucose metabolism and change in regional cerebral amyloid deposition and gray and white matter (WM) neurodegeneration in older adults over 1 year of follow-up.

Results: Individuals with improving fasting glucose (n = 61) exhibited less atrophy and regional amyloid accumulation compared to those whose fasting glucose worsened over 1 year (n = 44).

Mild Cognitive Impairment and Donepezil Impact Mitochondrial Respiratory Capacity in Skeletal Muscle.

Alzheimer's Disease (ad) associates with insulin resistance and low aerobic capacity, suggestive of impaired skeletal muscle mitochondrial function. However, this has not been directly measured in AD. This study (   = 50) compared muscle mitochondrial respiratory function and gene expression profiling in cognitively healthy older adults (CH;  = 24) to 26 individuals in the earliest phase of ad-related cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment (MCI;   = 11) or MCI taking the ad medication donepezil (MCI + med;   = 15).

Rationale and methods to characterize the acute exercise response in aging and Alzheimer's Disease: the AEROBIC pilot study.

There is evidence that exercise benefits the brain, but the mechanisms for this benefit are unclear. The chronic benefits of exercise are likely a product of discreet, acute responses in exercise-related blood biomarkers and brain metabolism. This acute exercise response has not been compared in aging and Alzheimer's Disease (AD).

Oxylipin Profiling of Alzheimer's Disease in Nondiabetic and Type 2 Diabetic Elderly.

Oxygenated lipids, called "oxylipins," serve a variety of important signaling roles within the cell. Oxylipins have been linked to inflammation and vascular function, and blood patterns have been shown to differ in type 2 diabetes (T2D). Because these factors (inflammation, vascular function, diabetes) are also associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk, we set out to characterize the serum oxylipin profile in elderly and AD subjects to understand if there are shared patterns between AD and T2D.

Health-Related Quality of Life of Older Adults in Costa Rica as Measured by the Short-Form-36 Health Survey.

To test the validity of a common measure of health-related quality of life (Short-Form-36 [SF-36]) in cognitively healthy older adults living in rural and urban Costa Rica. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to SF-36 data collected in 250 older adults from San Jose and Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The best fitting model for the SF-36 was an eight first-order factor structure.