Steps to Health in Cognitive Aging: Effects of Physical Activity on Spatial Attention and Executive Control in the Elderly.

Giancarlo Condello,John B Shea,Caterina Pesce,Laura Capranica,Simone Falbo,Roberta Forte,Angela Di Baldassarre

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00107

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether physical activity (PA) habits may positively impact performance of the orienting and executive control networks in community-dwelling aging individuals and diabetics, who are at risk of cognitive dysfunction. To this aim, we tested cross-sectionally whether age, ranging from late middle-age to old adulthood, and PA level independently or interactively predict different facets of the attentional performance. Hundred and thirty female and male individuals and 22 adults with type 2 diabetes aged 55–84 years were recruited and their daily PA (steps) was objectively measured by means of armband monitors. Participants performed a multifunctional attentional go/no-go reaction time (RT) task in which spatial attention was cued by means of informative direct cues of different sizes followed by compound stimuli with local and global target features. The performance efficiency of the orienting networks was estimated by computing RT differences between validly and invalidly cued trials, that of the executive control networks by computing local switch costs that are RT differences between switch and non-switch trials in mixed blocks of global and local target trials. In regression analyses performed on the data of non-diabetic elderlies, overall RTs and orienting effects resulted jointly predicted by age and steps. Age predicted overall RTs in low-active individuals, but orienting effects and response errors in high-active individuals. Switch costs were predicted by age only, with larger costs at older age. In the analysis conducted with the 22 diabetics and 22 matched non-diabetic elderlies, diabetic status and daily steps predicted longer and shorter RTs, respectively. Results suggest that high PA levels exert beneficial, but differentiated effects on processing speed and attentional networks performance in aging individuals that partially counteract the detrimental effects of advancing age and diabetic status. In conclusion, adequate levels of overall PA may positively impinge on brain efficiency and attentional control and should be therefore promoted by actions that support lifelong PA participation and impact the built environment to render it more conducive to PA.

Highlights

The rectangularization of the life expectancy curve and the increasing proportion of ‘graying’ population (Spirduso et al, 2005) urges societies toward a more comprehensive understanding of how to ensure health and quality of life of aging people
Echoing the title of a European framework to promote physical activity (PA) for health (“Steps to health,” World Health Organization, 2007), we extend the notion of the health-enhancing effects of PA to an aspect of cognitive health in aging people – the efficiency of attentional control – that has still received scarce consideration in research on the influence of PA on cognition
Diabetic status and PA level resulted to affect processing speed in opposite directions, whereas they did not affect the performance of the orienting and executive control networks as reflected in orienting effects and switch costs

Summary

Introduction

The rectangularization of the life expectancy curve and the increasing proportion of ‘graying’ population (Spirduso et al, 2005) urges societies toward a more comprehensive understanding of how to ensure health and quality of life of aging people. Methodological advancements in cognitive and especially neuroscientific research have allowed to accumulate evidence on the beneficial impact of PA on several aspects of brain health and cognitive efficiency in the aging population with or without chronic diseases (Bherer et al, 2013; Prakash et al, 2015; Young et al, 2015; Gajewski and Falkenstein, 2016). Designed, structured PA interventions (Espeland et al, 2016), as well as physically active habits as walking (Yaffe et al, 2001; Abbott et al, 2004) seem beneficial to counteract cognitive aging of older adults with and without diabetes, even though health-related covariates may limit effect size (Devore et al, 2009)

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