Physical activity effects on the individual alpha peak frequency of older adults with and without genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s Disease: A MEG study

Abstract

Objective Since a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is yet to be discovered, attention has shifted towards prevention. Physical activity (PA) emerged as a notorious lifestyle factor that could influence brain structure and function. The individual alpha peak frequency (IAPF) is a measure that summarizes the spectral content of brain signals and has been proven to be sensitive to both AD pathology and PA interventions. Therefore, our goal was to unravel whether chronic PA modulates IAPF and if APOE ɛ4 carriage moderates this relationship.

Methods We analyzed 4-minutes of resting-state magnetoencephalographic recordings from 100 healthy elders that provided self-reported measures of PA, and the IAPF was calculated.

Results We found that IAPF was negatively influenced by age and APOE and positively influenced by PA. The effect of PA on IAPF only remained significant for the ɛ4 non-carriers group.

Conclusions PA is positively associated to higher IAPF in healthy older adults and could potentially act as a protective factor against cognitive decline. Nevertheless, such effect is non-significant among elders who are more vulnerable to developing AD due to their genetic carriage.

Significance This investigation offers the first neurophysiological evidences on the combined effects of APOE genotype and PA in healthy elders.