title: Impact of the Baltimore Experience Corps Trial on cortical and hippocampal volumes.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is a substantial interest in identifying interventions that can protect and buffer older adults from atrophy in the cortex and particularly, the hippocampus, a region important to memory. We report the 2-year effects of a randomized controlled trial of an intergenerational social health promotion program on older men's and women's brain volumes.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Brain Health Study simultaneously enrolled, evaluated, and randomized 111 men and women (58 interventions; 53 controls) within the Baltimore Experience Corps Trial to evaluate the intervention impact on biomarkers of brain health at baseline and annual follow-ups during the 2-year trial exposure.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Intention-to-treat analyses on cortical and hippocampal volumes for full and sex-stratified samples revealed program-specific increases in volumes that reached significance in men only (P's ≤ .04). Although men in the control arm exhibited age-related declines for 2 years, men in the Experience Corps arm showed a 0.7% to 1.6% increase in brain volumes. Women also exhibited modest intervention-specific gains of 0.3% to 0.54% by the second year of exposure that contrasted with declines of about 1% among women in the control group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings showed that purposeful activity embedded within a social health promotion program halted and, in men, reversed declines in brain volume in regions vulnerable to dementia.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  NCT0038.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. Electronic address: mcarlso2@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Michelle C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Carlson
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Julie H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, and Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yi-Fang
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Vijay R
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Varma
authors.affiliation: Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Greg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Marilyn S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Albert
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Kirk I
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Erickson
authors.affiliation: Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Arthur F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Kramer
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Jeanine M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Parisi
authors.affiliation: Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Qian-Li
authors.initials: QL
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: The Corporation for National and Community Service, Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Eriwn J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Community-Public Health, The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Tanner
authors.affiliation: Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Alden L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.affiliation: Division of Geriatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Teresa E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Seeman
authors.affiliation: Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Tara L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Gruenewald
authors.affiliation: Greater Homewood Community Corporation, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Sylvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McGill
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: George W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Rebok
authors.affiliation: Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Linda P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Fried
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology* / Q000502:physiology; D001284:Atrophy / Q000517:prevention & control; D015142:Baltimore; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control; D009929:Organ Size; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014838:Volunteers
keywords: Brain aging; Cognitive activity; Cortical volume; Hippocampus; MRI; Neuroimaging; Physical activity; Randomized controlled trial; Social activity
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