ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Exercise Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1535045
This article is part of the Research TopicBrain Adaptations to Exercise in Health and Neurodegenerative Diseases: Considerations and Future Perspectives on the Underlying MechanismsView all 3 articles
Enhanced Cerebral Oxygenation during Mental and Physical Activity in Older Adults is Unaltered by Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment
Provisionally accepted
Stephanie ElbannaChristopher Cortez
Elaina SmithJewelia RattanavongSarah RossGeoffrey KlineApril WiechmannHannah Dyson
Robert T Mallet
Xiangrong Shi*- University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, United States
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The impact of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) on cerebral oxygenation and cardiovascular responses to mental and physical challenges in elderly adults is unclear. This study compared the responses to mental (serial sevens test) and physical (isometric handgrip) challenges in older adults with vs. without aMCI.Thirty-one aMCI (71.5±1.1 years old) and 30 cognitively normal (70.8±1.1 years old) adults participated in the study. Heart rate (HR), mean arterial pressure (MAP), systemic arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2), prefrontal cortical oxyhemoglobin (O2Hb) and deoxyhemoglobin (HHb) contents, and tissue oxygen saturation (ScO2) were continuously monitored during 2-min serial sevens mental arithmetic test and 1-min isometric handgrip at 30% of maximal voluntary contraction. Test results in the aMCI vs non-MCI subjects were compared by two-factor ANOVA.Cardiovascular and tissue oxygenation responses to testing were similar in the two groups. Although MAP increased similarly during the mental and physical challenges, increases in HR (P=0.020), SaO2 (P<0.001), ScO2 (P=0.001) and O2Hb (P=0.022) were greater during the mental vs. physical challenges in both aMCI and cognitively normal subjects.The mental arithmetic challenge increased the metabolic demand of the prefrontal cortex to a greater extent than the physical task. Cerebral O2 content increased more appreciably during the mental vs. physical challenges, in parallel with greater increases in HR. However, aMCI did not alter these physiological responses to mental or physical challenges.
Keywords: cerebral tissue oxygenation, Heart rate response, Isometric handgrip, neurovascular coupling, Oxyhemoglobin, serial sevens test
Received: 26 Nov 2024; Accepted: 23 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Elbanna, Cortez, Smith, Rattanavong, Ross, Kline, Wiechmann, Dyson, Mallet and Shi. 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: Xiangrong Shi, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, United States
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