Exercise engagement drives changes in cognition and cardiorespiratory fitness after 8 weeks of aerobic training in sedentary aging adults at risk of cognitive decline.
Carrie A Hinchman, Danylo F Cabral, Marissa Ciesla and 10 others
PMID 36189006WHAT IT FOUND
Eight weeks of aerobic exercise improved heart rate recovery in sedentary adults, but cognitive gains were small and inconsistent.
Participants who stayed in their target heart rate zone for over 70% of the time saw better global cognition. Remote sessions had higher adherence than in-person ones.
Key findings
01Heart rate recovery improved significantly after eight weeks of exercise, with a moderate effect size for the two-minute measure.
02Cognitive changes were mixed: verbal fluency and memory improved slightly, but working memory scores decreased.
03High exercise engagement (time spent in the target heart rate zone) was associated with greater improvements in global cognition and heart rate recovery.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was a single-arm trial with no control group, so it cannot determine if the changes were due to the exercise or other factors like practice effects or natural variation. The sample size was small and the study was underpowered for some outcomes. The intervention was adapted mid-study from in-person to remote delivery due to the pandemic, introducing different exercise modalities and recruitment methods. Raters were not blinded to the intervention. Participants were highly educated and mostly female, limiting generalizability.
Declared interests
Authors MC, AP-L, and JG-O were employed by Linus Health. Funding was provided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and a pilot grant from the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the significant decrease in working memory scores as evidence that exercise harms cognition. The authors attribute this to test variability and note that the effect size was small, unlike the moderate improvements seen in heart rate recovery.