Influence of physical activity and weight loss on brain plasticity

描述（由申请人提供）：本申请提议在NIH资助的为期12个月的饮食和身体活动干预中增加一个神经成像臂。肥胖目前在美国已成为流行病，影响了超过三分之一的美国成年人。认知和大脑功能受损——表现为情绪障碍、冲动和神经病理学风险增加——往往是肥胖的未被认识到的后果。这些后果尤其令人不安，因为肥胖在儿童和青少年时期日益普遍，而这一时期正是教育、智力发育和为未来职业寻求做准备的高峰期。因此，严格调查肥胖对神经认知功能的影响，并探索减肥恢复认知和大脑功能的潜力，是公共卫生的当务之急。本研究分为三组：仅饮食（diet）、饮食+中等体力活动（MOD-PA）、饮食+高体力活动（high - pa），并将收集大量的结果测量，包括主动脉脉搏波速度、炎症标志物、葡萄糖和胰岛素、腹部脂肪和身体成分（使用双能x线吸收仪）、心肺健康（使用分级运动测试）、加速度计测量的体力活动和能量摄入。除了在父母研究中收集的受试者外，我们还将收集一组无接触控制（CON）参与者，用于可靠性和比较目的。因此，通过将脑成像添加到这种干预中，我们的建议反映了一种具有成本效益和创新的方法，可以研究身体活动、体重减轻、大脑完整性、代谢结果和认知处理之间的联系，并提供了以最小的额外成本收集大脑健康数据的机会。测试这些联系可以改变在评估脑功能障碍风险或治疗肥胖相关行为问题时考虑脑-体关联的方式。我们的主要目标包括：目标1。为了研究对超重和肥胖成人进行12个月的体育活动和减肥干预是否会增加皮质体积并改善微结构白质完整性，目的2：通过任务相关神经反应、脑血流量和静息状态脑连通性评估，研究增加体育活动和减肥如何改变大脑功能动态，目的3。将脑完整性、功能和连通性的变化与干预引起的代谢和炎症分子途径的生理测量变化联系起来。我们的项目首次尝试将长期干预中的体重减轻与大脑网络的变化联系起来。它是高度创新的，具有成本效益的，并将大大增加科学文献。通过利用现有的美国国立卫生研究院资助的项目，并通过专注于神经成像结果与一个熟练和富有成效的专家团队在减肥干预和尖端的神经成像技术，我们将能够解决未解决的问题，对肥胖和大脑健康具有重要的理论和转化意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application proposes to add a neuroimaging arm to an NIH funded 12-month diet and physical activity intervention. Obesity is currently at epidemic proportions in the United States, affecting over 1/3rd of American adults. Impaired cognitive and brain function - manifested as mood disorders, impulsivity, and an increased risk for neurological pathology - are often unrecognized consequences of obesity. These consequences are especially unsettling in view of the increased prevalence of obesity during childhood and adolescence, when the education, intellectual growth, and the preparation for future career seeking are at its peak. Hence, it is a public health imperative to rigorously investigate the effects of obesity on neurocognitive functions and to explore the potential for weight loss to restore cognitive and brain function. The parent study has three groups: diet only (DIET), diet + moderate physical activity (MOD-PA), diet + high physical activity (HIGH-PA) and will be collecting a myriad of outcome measures including aortic pulse wave velocity, inflammatory markers, glucose and insulin, abdominal adiposity and body composition using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, cardiorespiratory fitness using a graded exercise test, accelerometry measured physical activity, and energy intake. In addition to the subjects collected in the parent study we will collect a group of no-contact control (CON) participants for both reliability and comparison purposes. Therefore, by adding brain imaging to this intervention, our proposal reflects a cost effective and innovative approach to investigate links between physical activity, weight loss, brain integrity, metabolic outcomes, and cognitive processing and offers an opportunity to collect data on brain health with minimal additional costs. Testing these links could transform the way that brain-body associations are considered when assessing the risk for brain dysfunction or treating obesity related behavioral problems. Our main aims include: Aim 1. To examine whether a 12-month physical activity and weight loss intervention on overweight and obese adults increases cortical volume and improves microstructural white matter integrity, Aim 2: Examine how increased physical activity and weight loss can change the functional dynamics of the brain as assessed by both task-related neural responses, cerebral blood flow, and resting state brain connectivity, Aim 3. Link the changes in brain integrity, function, and connectivity with intervention-induced changes in physiological measures of metabolic and inflammatory molecular pathways. Our project represents the first attempt to associate weight loss in a long-term intervention to changes in brain networks. It is highly innovative, cost-effective, and will add significantly to the scientifc literature. By leveraging an existing NIH funded program and by focusing on neuroimaging outcomes with a skilled and productive team of experts in both weight loss interventions and cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques, we will be able to address unanswered questions that have important theoretical and translational implications for obesity and brain health.