Exercise, Executive Processes and the Aging Brain

描述(申请人提供)：这项研究的目的是为了更好地了解与老年人健康和有效功能增强相关的因素。具体地说，精神运动表现的效率随着年龄的增长而下降，从而对老年人的生活质量产生深远的影响。为此，研究人员将重点放在了个人生活习惯对衰老过程的影响上。一种已被发现对老年人精神运动表现效率有积极贡献的生活方式选择是心血管运动。当老年人面临更复杂或更费力的任务时，这种关系似乎尤其重要。这里有两条研究路线是相关的。首先，与年龄有关的差异已经被记录在案，使用的任务需要额叶辅助的执行控制过程。在没有额叶辅助的任务中，这些差异并不总是被观察到，这使得研究人员认为，衰老对认知功能具有特定的、而不是普遍的影响。其次，研究发现，长期参加心血管运动可以维持对健康衰老至关重要的认知功能。因此，本研究的目的是检验为期6个月的心血管运动干预试验对执行控制过程的大脑皮层(ERPs)和行为测量(RT)的作用。此外，参加为期6个月的伸展和调理计划的非心血管运动控制组将用于比较。参与者将在运动训练之前和之后在几个旨在引起不同执行功能(例如干扰控制、任务切换、抑制)的任务中进行测量。每项任务还包含一个非执行条件，用于比较，以检验运动参与认知功能的特殊性。这个项目的第二个目标是确定一场剧烈运动对认知功能的影响。这两组人都将参加几轮锻炼，然后立即对上述任务进行测量，以确定急性锻炼是否对执行控制过程有好处。这项研究的意义可能包括增加对与改善与年龄相关的中枢神经系统功能减退相关因素的了解，以及对在生命后期维持认知健康的建议。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This aim of this research is to gain a better understanding of factors that relate to the increased health and effective functioning of older adults. Specifically, efficiency of psychomotor performance declines with advancing age leading to profound effects on older adults' quality of life. For this reason, researchers have focused on the influence that individual lifestyle habits have on the aging process. One lifestyle choice that has been found to positively contribute to the efficiency of older adults' psychomotor performance is cardiovascular exercise. This relationship appears to be especially significant when older adults are challenged with more complex or effortful tasks. Two lines of research are relevant here. First, age-related discrepancies have been documented using tasks that require executive control processes that are subserved by the frontal lobes. These differences are not consistently observed using tasks that are not subserved by the frontal lobes, leading investigators to believe that aging has a specific, rather than generalized, impact on cognitive functioning. Secondly, prolonged participation in cardiovascular exercise has been found to maintain the cognitive functioning critical for healthy aging. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine the role of a 6-month cardiovascular exercise intervention trial on electrocortical (ERPs) and behavioral measures (RT) of executive control processes. In addition, a non-cardiovascular exercise control group that participates in a 6-month stretching and toning program will be used for comparison. Participants will be measured before and after exercise training during engagement in several tasks designed to elicit different executive functions (e.g., interference control, task switching, inhibition). Each task also contains a non-executive condition that will be used for comparison to examine the specificity of exercise participation of cognitive functioning. A secondary aim of this project is to determine the effects of an acute bout of exercise on cognitive functioning. Both groups will participate in several bouts of exercise followed by immediate measurement on the tasks outlined above to determine whether acute exercise has beneficial effects on executive control processes. The significance of this research may include the increased understanding of factors related to the amelioration of age-related decrements in central nervous system functioning and recommendations for the maintenance of cognitive health during the later stages of life.