Brain train to combat brain drain; focus on exercise strategies that optimize neuroprotection
What is the topic of this review? The topic of this review is to consider innovative exercise strategies that optimize neuroprotection in order to combat cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disease in older age. What advances does it highlight? The review summarizes current understanding around exercise mode, duration, frequency and intensity, and then highlights adaptive roles of select stressors that have equal if not indeed greater capacity than exercise per se to induce health related adaptation in the brain. These stressors include, but are not exclusively limited to, hydrostatic and thermal stress, hypoxia, nutritional supplementation and cognitive loading, and are effective by targeting specific pathways that collectively contribute towards improved brain structure and function.
Experimental physiology