REVIEW article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1677896
This article is part of the Research TopicAssessing Physical Activity & Exercise impact in DementiaView all articles
Exercise Modulation of Gut Microbiota in Alzheimer's Disease: Pathophysiological Mechanisms and Therapeutic Perspectives
Provisionally accepted
- Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China
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As global life expectancy increases, Alzheimer's disease (AD) has become a major public health concern. The gut microbiota plays a pivotal role in regulating the central nervous system, influencing both behavior and cognitive functions in AD through direct and indirect mechanisms. Physical exercise has been shown to positively modulate the diversity and composition of the gut microbiota, emerging as a significant factor in slowing AD progression. A growing body of research highlights the dynamic interactions between exercise, gut microbiota, and AD, revealing that exercise can alter the synthesis and metabolism of key neuroactive substances, such as glutamate and aspartate, thereby enhancing cognitive function. Moreover, exercise influences peripheral and central immune responses via microbiota modulation, reducing neuroinflammation, amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition, and tau phosphorylation. Exercise also regulates gut microbiota-derived metabolites, including short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which are crucial for alleviating neuroinflammation and maintaining the integrity of the blood-brain barrier(BBB). This review synthesizes recent advances in the molecular mechanisms underpinning the exercise-microbiota-AD axis, offering new therapeutic perspectives for AD.
Keywords: Exercise, Gut Microbiota, Alzheimer's disease, gut-brain axis, Neuroinflammation, Blood-Brain Barrier, Cognitive Function
Received: 01 Aug 2025; Accepted: 22 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Leng, Yang, Yuan, Chen, Chen, Ban and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yang Yuan, yuanyangofficial@yeah.net
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