Cardiorespiratory Fitness for Cognitive Fitness

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is a measure of the ability of the body’s circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to the skeletal muscles during sustained physical activity. Qu Tian, from the US National Institute on Aging (NIA; Maryland,d USA), and colleagues studied 146 older men and women, average age 69 years and without cognitive disorders at the study’s start, for a decade. The team used treadmill tests to measure cardiorespiratory fitness and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect changes in brain volume. In the treadmill tests at the start of the study, researchers used mathematical models to estimate participants’ fitness levels when they were age 50.  People who were fitter at 50 had greater brain volume later in life in the middle temporal gyrus, the region of the brain thought to be involved in memory, language and visual perception, as well as in the perirhinal cortex, thought to aid unconscious memory and object recognition. They also had a greater volume of white matter; when this declines, it may be an early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease.   The study authors write that: “Higher midlife [cardiorespiratory fitness] may play a role in preserving middle and medial temporal volumes in late adulthood. Slower atrophy in middle frontal and angular gyri may predict late-life [cardiorespiratory fitness].”