Current Alzheimer researchMar 7, 2022

Sixteen Weeks of Aerobic Exercise Does Not Change Resting Brain Network Activity in the Thinking Areas of People with Alzheimer's Disease

Longevity & Aging Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Feb 13, 2026

Abstract

Sixteen weeks of aerobic exercise did not show any change in functional connectivity of the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus region in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Patients with Alzheimer's disease underwent a randomized controlled trial with 45 participants assigned to either an exercise or control group.
The exercise group engaged in 60 minutes of aerobic exercise three times per week for a total of 16 weeks.
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess connectivity in the default mode network before and after the intervention.
Analysis of the data indicated no exercise-induced changes in connectivity of the default mode network from baseline to follow-up.
These findings suggest that a longer duration of exercise may be necessary to observe any effects on brain connectivity in this population.

Simplified

INTRODUCTION: In healthy elderly persons and patients with mild cognitive impairment, physical exercise can increase functional brain connectivity in the default mode network (DMN) measured by restingstate functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). However, no studies have so far investigated the effect of physical exercise on functional resting-state connectivity in the DMN in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD).

OBJECTIVE: In a single-blinded randomized controlled trial, we assessed the effects of an aerobic exercise intervention of 16 weeks of physical exercise on DMN connectivity using rs-fMRI in patients with AD.

METHODS: Forty-five patients were randomly assigned to either a control or exercise group. The exercise group performed 60-min of aerobic exercise three times per week for 16 weeks. All the patients underwent whole-brain rs-fMRI at 3 T, at baseline, and after 16 weeks. Since the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and adjacent precuneus constitute a central hub of the DMN, this parietal region was defined as region-ofinterest and used as the seed region for functional connectivity analysis of the rs-fMRI data treating age and gender as covariates.

RESULTS: Neither seed-based analysis, seeded in the PCC/precuneus region nor ICA-based analyses, focusing on components of the DMN network, showed any exercise-induced changes in functional resting-state connectivity from baseline to follow-up.

CONCLUSION: 16 weeks of aerobic exercise does not modify functional connectivity of the PCC/precuneus region in patients with AD. A longer intervention may be needed to show the effect of exercise on brain connectivity.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View Full Text ↗

Sixteen Weeks of Aerobic Exercise Does Not Change Resting Brain Network Activity in the Thinking Areas of People with Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the longevity & aging brief

Abstract

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the longevity & aging brief