Rapid stimulation of human dentate gyrus function with acute mild exercise

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1805668115
• Publication Date: 2018-09-24T19:04:36Z
• Authors: Kazuya Suwabe; Kyeongho Byun; Kazuki Hyodo; Zachariah M. Reagh; Jared M. Roberts; Akira Matsushita; Kousaku Saotome; Genta Ochi; Takemune Fukuie; Kenji Suzuki; Yoshiyuki Sankai; Michael A. Yassa; Hideaki Soya
• Keywords: Parahippocampal gyrus

Physical exercise has beneficial effects on neurocognitive function, including hippocampus-dependent episodic memory. Exercise intensity level can be assessed according to whether it induces a stress response; the most effective for improving hippocampal function remains unclear. Our prior work using special treadmill running model in animals shown that stress-free mild increases neuronal activity and promotes adult neurogenesis dentate gyrus (DG) of hippocampus, spatial memory performance. However, rapid modification, from exercise, exact mechanisms these changes, particular impact pattern separation acting DG CA3 regions, are yet elucidated. To this end, we adopted an acute-exercise design humans, coupled with high-resolution functional MRI techniques, capable resolving subfields. A single 10-min bout very light-intensity (30%[Formula: see text]) results enhancement increase connectivity between DG/CA3 cortical regions (i.e., parahippocampal, angular, fusiform gyri). Importantly, magnitude enhanced predicted extent improvement at individual subject level. These suggest brief, light rapidly enhances possibly by increasing DG/CA3-neocortical connectivity.