Impact of the Baltimore Experience Corps Trial on cortical and hippocampal volumes

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• 作者：Michelle C. Carlson^a ; ^b ; ^c ; ^{mcarlso2@jhu.edu" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Julie H. Kuo^c ; Yi-Fang Chuang^a ; ^d ; Vijay R. Varma^a ; ^b ; Greg Harris^b ; Marilyn S. Albert^e ; Kirk I. Erickson^f ; Arthur F. Kramer^g ; Jeanine M. Parisi^a ; Qian-Li Xue^b ; ^h ; Eriwn J. Tanⁱ ; Elizabeth K. Tanner^b ; ^j ; Alden L. Gross^b ; ^c ; Teresa E. Seeman^k ; Tara L. Gruenewald^l ; Sylvia McGill^m ; George W. Rebok^a ; ^b ; Linda P. Friedⁿ
• 关键词：Randomized controlled trial ; Brain aging ; Social activity ; Cognitive activity ; Physical activity ; Neuroimaging ; Cortical volume ; Hippocampus ; MRI
• 刊名：Alzheimer's & Dementia
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：November 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：11
• 期：11
• 页码：1340-1348
• 全文大小：627 K

文摘

There is a substantial interest in identifying interventions that can protect and buffer older adults from atrophy in the cortex and particularly, the hippocampus, a region important to memory. We report the 2-year effects of a randomized controlled trial of an intergenerational social health promotion program on older men's and women's brain volumes.

c_2">Methods

The Brain Health Study simultaneously enrolled, evaluated, and randomized 111 men and women (58 interventions; 53 controls) within the Baltimore Experience Corps Trial to evaluate the intervention impact on biomarkers of brain health at baseline and annual follow-ups during the 2-year trial exposure.

c_3">Results

Intention-to-treat analyses on cortical and hippocampal volumes for full and sex-stratified samples revealed program-specific increases in volumes that reached significance in men only (P's ≤ .04). Although men in the control arm exhibited age-related declines for 2 years, men in the Experience Corps arm showed a 0.7% to 1.6% increase in brain volumes. Women also exhibited modest intervention-specific gains of 0.3% to 0.54% by the second year of exposure that contrasted with declines of about 1% among women in the control group.

c_4">Discussion

These findings showed that purposeful activity embedded within a social health promotion program halted and, in men, reversed declines in brain volume in regions vulnerable to dementia.

Clinical Trial Registration: class="interref" data-locatorType="ctgov" data-locatorKey="NCT0038">NCT0038.