ArticleAlzheimer's research & therapy2018
Cardiorespiratory fitness attenuates age-associated aggregation of white matter hyperintensities in an at-risk cohort.
Article in Alzheimer's research & therapy, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Associations of cardiorespiratory fitness and exercise with brain white matter in healthy adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Brain imaging and behavior · 2022Pooled it
- Physical activity and the aging brain: A narrative review.Journal of health psychology · 2026Review
- The impact of exercise on cognitive function and brain health across the lifespan: A systematic review.Ibrain · 2026Review
- Role of exercise on ncRNAs and exosomal ncRNAs in preventing neurodegenerative diseases: a narrative review.Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Review
- Evidence of association between higher cardiorespiratory fitness and higher cerebral myelination in aging.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Exploring the neuroprotective role of physical activity in cerebral small vessel disease.Brain research · 2024Review
- Effects of aerobic exercise training on cerebral pulsatile hemodynamics in middle-aged adults with elevated blood pressure/stage 1 hypertension.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2024Article
- Harnessing cognitive trajectory clusterings to examine subclinical decline risk factors.Brain communications · 2023Article
- Cardiorespiratory Fitness Attenuates the Deleterious Effects of Sleep Apnea on Cerebral Structure and Perfusion in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2023Article
- Long Non-Coding RNAs, Extracellular Vesicles and Inflammation in Alzheimer's Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Influence of sex and presence of cardiovascular risk factors on relations between cardiorespiratory fitness and cerebrovascular hemodynamics.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2022Article
- Getting Fit to Counteract Cognitive Aging: Evidence and Future Directions.Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Review
- Article
- Cardiorespiratory fitness and cognition in persons at risk for Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
- Cardiorespiratory fitness diminishes the effects of age on white matter hyperintensity volume.PloS one · 2020Article
- Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between total and regional white matter hyperintensity volume and cognitive and motor function in Parkinson's disease.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2019Article
- Walking energetics and white matter hyperintensities in mid-to-late adulthood.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
- More fit KL-VS heterozygotes have more favorable AD-relevant biomarker profiles.Alzheimer's & dementia (New York, N. Y.)Article
- The Involvement of lncRNA HOTAIR/miR-130a-3p Axis in the Regulation of Voluntary Exercise on Cognition and Inflammation of Alzheimer's Disease.American journal of Alzheimer's disease and other dementiasArticle
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Authors and funding
17 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAge is the cardinal risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), and white matter hyperintensities (WMH), which are more prevalent with increasing age, may contribute to AD. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) has been shown to be associated with cognitive health and decreased burden of AD-related brain alterations in older adults. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to determine whether CRF attenuates age-related accumulation of WMH in middle-aged adults at risk for AD.
methodsOne hundred and seven cognitively unimpaired, late-middle-aged adults from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention underwent 3 T magnetic resonance imaging and performed graded maximal treadmill exercise testing from which we calculated the oxygen uptake efficiency slope (OUES) as our measure of CRF. Total WMH were quantified using the Lesion Segmentation Tool and scaled to intracranial volume. Linear regression adjusted for APOE4 carriage, family history, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, and sex was used to examine relationships between age, WMH, and CRF.
resultsAs expected, there was a significant association between age and WMH (p < .001). Importantly, there was a significant interaction between age and OUES on WMH (p = .015). Simple main effects analyses revealed that the effect of age on WMH remained significant in the Low OUES group (p < .001) but not in the High OUES group (p = .540), indicating that higher CRF attenuates the deleterious age association with WMH.
conclusionsHigher CRF tempers the adverse effect of age on WMH. This suggests a potential pathway through which increased aerobic fitness facilitates healthy brain aging, especially among individuals at risk for AD.
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