Perfusion and pulsatility techniques to study aerobic fitness effects on the brain

了解有氧运动对人脑的作用已成为神经科学和运动生理学综合领域的新前沿。这项建议涉及主要集中于开发磁共振成像(MRI)的生理技术的发展。这项技术将有助于我们了解心血管和脑血管系统之间的关系，即心脏和大脑的联系。这一提议的目的如下：1)开发一种通过高时间和空间分辨率成像来定量表征大脑中心脏搏动的MRI技术；2)发展我们对脑血管反应性的机械性理解，使用在参与者有氧运动时测量来自颅内动脉的一拍一拍的血流速度的“真实世界”范式；3)测试有氧运动是一种生理应激源的理论，该理论可以对与执行心理应激fMRI任务相关的大脑激活模式产生积极影响。总而言之，这项研究计划利用了MRI提供的非凡的空间和时间分辨率，并将提供有关大脑血管的新的定量读数。我相信这项研究将在运动生理学领域取得重大进展。尽管这些研究的目的是为了了解运动对健康成年人大脑的急性影响，但这项研究自然有助于研究血管衰老和终身健身的影响，这些影响被认为可以保护大脑健康和认知能力。

Understanding what aerobic exercise does to the human brain has become a new frontier in the integrated field of neuroscience and exercise physiology. This proposal deals with the development of physiological techniques primarily focused on exploiting magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This technology will help in our understand of the relationship between the cardiovascular and the cerebrovascular systems, i.e. the heart and brain connection. The aims in this proposal are the following: 1) develop an MRI technique that characterizes cardiac pulsatility in the brain quantitatively through high temporal and spatial resolution imaging, 2) develop our mechanistic understanding on cerebrovascular reactivity, using a ‘real world’ paradigm that measures beat-by-beat blood flow velocities from intracranial arteries while participants are exercising aerobically, 3) test the theory that aerobic exercise is a physiological stressor that can exert a positive influence on brain activation patterns associated with performing a psychologically stressful fMRI task. Collectively, this research program exploits the exceptional spatial & temporal resolution available with MRI and will deliver new quantitative readouts that inform on the brain’s blood vessels. I believe this research will lead to significant advances in the field of exercise physiology. Although the aims are directed at understanding the acute effects of exercise on the healthy adult brain, this research naturally lends itself to study vascular aging and life-long fitness effects that are thought to preserve brain health and cognitive abilities.