title: Physical Exercise Keeps the Brain Connected: Biking Increases White Matter Integrity in Patients With Schizophrenia and Healthy Controls.
abstract: It has been shown that learning a new skill leads to structural changes in the brain. However, it is unclear whether it is the acquisition or continuous practicing of the skill that causes this effect and whether brain connectivity of patients with schizophrenia can benefit from such practice. We examined the effect of 6 months exercise on a stationary bicycle on the brain in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. Biking is an endemic skill in the Netherlands and thus offers an ideal situation to disentangle the effects of learning vs practice. The 33 participating patients with schizophrenia and 48 healthy individuals were assigned to either one of two conditions, ie, physical exercise or life-as-usual, balanced for diagnosis. Diffusion tensor imaging brain scans were made prior to and after intervention. We demonstrate that irrespective of diagnosis regular physical exercise of an overlearned skill, such as bicycling, significantly increases the integrity, especially of motor functioning related, white matter fiber tracts whereas life-as-usual leads to a decrease in fiber integrity. Our findings imply that exercise of an overlearned physical skill improves brain connectivity in patients and healthy individuals. This has important implications for understanding the effect of fitness programs on the brain in both healthy subjects and patients with schizophrenia. Moreover, the outcome may even apply to the nonphysical realm.
authors.affiliation: Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Multimodal and Functional Neuroimaging Research Group, Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Alena
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Svatkova
authors.affiliation: Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands;
authors.forename: René C W
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Mandl
authors.affiliation: Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands;
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Scheewe
authors.affiliation: Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands;
authors.forename: Wiepke
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cahn
authors.affiliation: Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands;
authors.forename: René S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Kahn
authors.affiliation: Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands; H.E.Hulshoff@umcutrecht.nl.
authors.forename: Hilleke E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Hulshoff Pol
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001642:Bicycling / Q000502:physiology*; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D066127:White Matter / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000473:pathology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: connectivity; diffusion tensor imaging; fractional anisotropy; longitudinal; physical exercise; schizophrenia
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