Post-mortem human hippocampal neuroplasticity, cognition, and late-life physical activity: Importance of biological sex and cognitive health status
Aperçu du projet
The world population is rapidly aging; there is a real need for effective, personalized lifestyle recommendations for promoting healthy cognitive aging. Physical activity is a promising strategy for healthy brain aging. However, we lack prerequisite knowledge that will improve its utility and effectiveness. Specifically, we do not now for whom increasing physical activity levels will be most effective. Building on my previous findings, I will examine how two biological factors may influence how beneficial physical activity is for the brain. Specifically, I will look at the role of biological sex (males or females) and cognitive health diagnosis at death cognitively unimpaired, mild cognitive impairment, or Alzheimer’s disease). We also don’t understand how physical activity is exerting its influence on cognition. What we do know so far has come mainly from rodent studies which emphasize the importance of hippocampal neurogenesis, which is the production of new neurons throughout the lifespan in one region of the brain that is vital for creating and recalling memory. No study to date has been able to examine the relationship between physical activity and neurogenesis in human brains. Thus, we propose to leverage our access to a study of aging, cognition, physical activity and human brain tissue to determine whether the level of hippocampal neurogenesis is related to the beneficial effect of physical activity on cognition, and whether this is similar in males vs. females and whether cognitive diagnosis with dementia influences these relationships. Additionally, we will examine other potential cellular mechanisms that may be involved in how physical activity influences cognition. This study will provide prerequisite knowledge that will lead to more effective, personalized physical activity recommendations based on biological sex and cognitive diagnosis.
Chef d'équipe
Cindy Barha , University of Calgary