As the Wisconsin State Journal reported in a 3-day investigative series about dementia, the role of physical activity in maintaining brain health is investigated in the lab of Ozioma Okonkwo, PhD, Wisconsin ADRC investigator and a clinical psychologist at UW-Madison. A study Okonkwo presented at a conference in August 2019 involved 23 middle-age adults in the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP) who weren’t physically active. For six months, 11 of them exercised regularly and other study participants remained inactive. Those who exercised had better glucose metabolism on brain scans and higher scores on cognitive function tests, researchers found. In a previous study, Okonkwo found that people who exercised five times a week or more had a reduction in four age-related changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease: slower breakdown of glucose, development of amyloid plaques, a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus, and declines in recall and recognition tests.
Read more about Okonkwo’s research findings in "While no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, exercise can benefit brain," which appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal on November 26, 2019.
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