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Full-Text Articles in Sports Sciences

What Is The Number Needed To Treat When Exercise Training Heart Failure Patients?, Neil Smart Sep 2010

What Is The Number Needed To Treat When Exercise Training Heart Failure Patients?, Neil Smart

Neil Smart

Debate exists on the number needed to treat (NNT) to prevent one mortality with exercise training in heart failure patients. The primary aim of this work was to conduct a sensitivity analysis, removing outlying mortality data from a published meta-analysis of exercise training in heart failure patients. A sensitivity analysis was conducted by removing data from one randomized controlled trial that reported particularly high mortality rates and may be considered a data outlier. Annualized NNTs were subsequently calculated for mortality data from a meta-analysis of exercise training in heart failure patients. Sensitivity analysis showed that the mortality benefit reported by …


Plasticity Of Brain Networks In A Randomized Intervention Trial Of Exercise Training In Older Adults, Michelle W. Voss, Ruchika S. Prakash, Kirk I. Erickson, Chandramallika Basak, Laura Chaddock, Jennifer S. Kim, Heloisa Alves, Susie Heo, Amanda N. Szabo, Siobhan M. White, Thomas R. Wójcicki, Emily L. Mailey, Neha Gothe, Erin A. Olson, Edward Mcauley, Arthur F. Kramer Aug 2010

Plasticity Of Brain Networks In A Randomized Intervention Trial Of Exercise Training In Older Adults, Michelle W. Voss, Ruchika S. Prakash, Kirk I. Erickson, Chandramallika Basak, Laura Chaddock, Jennifer S. Kim, Heloisa Alves, Susie Heo, Amanda N. Szabo, Siobhan M. White, Thomas R. Wójcicki, Emily L. Mailey, Neha Gothe, Erin A. Olson, Edward Mcauley, Arthur F. Kramer

Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies

Research has shown the human brain is organized into separable functional networks during rest and varied states of cognition, and that aging is associated with specific network dysfunctions. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine low-frequency (0.008 < f < 0.08 Hz) coherence of cognitively relevant and sensory brain networks in older adults who participated in a 1-year intervention trial, comparing the effects of aerobic and nonaerobic fitness training on brain function and cognition. Results showed that aerobic training improved the aging brain’s resting functional efficiency in higher-level cognitive networks. One year of walking increased functional connectivity between aspects of the frontal, posterior, and temporal cortices within the Default Mode Network and a Frontal Executive Network, two brain networks central to brain dysfunction in aging. Length of training was also an important factor. Effects in favor of the walking group were observed only after 12 months of training, compared to non-significant trends after 6 months. A non-aerobic stretching and toning group also showed increased functional connectivity in the DMN after 6 months and in a Frontal Parietal Network after 12 months, possibly reflecting experience-dependent plasticity. Finally, we found that changes in functional connectivity were behaviorally relevant. Increased functional connectivity was associated with greater improvement in executive function. Therefore the study provides the first evidence for exercise-induced functional plasticity in large-scale brain systems in the aging brain, using functional connectivity techniques, and offers new insight into the role of aerobic fitness in attenuating age-related brain dysfunction.