Exercise might help improve mobility during aging

(Press-News.org) The brain-chemical surge that comes with running may bolster coordination and speed in the old and young alike, a new study of middle-aged mice shows. Such physical activity may help restore ease of movement and agility, which often decline as humans and animals get older, the study authors said.

Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the investigation explored how aerobic exercise can boost the release of dopamine, a brain chemical involved in movement, reward, and memory. The team built upon its earlier work, which revealed that young (10-week-old) male rodents had a lasting increase in dopamine release after voluntarily running on an exercise wheel for 30 days. The new findings showed that 12-month-old male mice — the equivalent of humans in their 50s — experienced the same or greater rises in the chemical. 

In addition, the middle-aged runners could more swiftly and agilely climb down a pole or dash around an open arena than animals of the same age that did not have access to a functioning wheel. The study authors note that the rodents’ grip strength did not change after their month of exercise, suggesting that the improvements resulted solely from enhanced coordination rather than muscle power. 

“Our findings make clear that the impact of exercise on brain health and mobility is not exclusive to the young,” said study senior author Margaret Rice, PhD. “By getting enough physical activity, we can still heighten dopamine release to help us move faster and more easily,” added Rice, a professor in the Departments of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. 

Experts have long understood the importance of aerobic exercise (activities that boost breathing and heart rate, such as swimming, cycling, and dancing). Such workouts, past research showed, drive the release of dopamine and other chemicals that are important for brain health. However, how the underlying mechanisms work in an aging brain and body had until now been unclear, says Rice, who notes that the brain cells (neurons) that produce dopamine gradually decline in older adults. 

The new study, publishing online Dec. 9 in the journal npj Parkinson’s Disease, is believed to be the first to uncover a link between dopamine release from exercise and improved motor performance in aging mice of both sexes, according to the authors. They solely examined young males in their past research.

According to Rice, the findings may provide important insight into therapeutic approaches for Parkinson’s disease, a brain disorder in which dopamine-producing neurons can break down, leading to tremors, slow movement, and poor balance, among other concerns. Physical activity has long been observed to help ease patients’ symptoms. 

“These results provide neurochemical evidence for why exercise improves everything from memory to movement to mood, all of which are affected in people with Parkinson’s disease,” said Rice. 

Based on these findings, Rice says the research team next plans to repeat the study in mice genetically engineered to serve as models for the neurodegenerative disorder. 

Rice cautions that future studies of humans will be required to fully understand how dopamine release prompted by exercise may impact Parkinson’s disease.

For the investigation, two-dozen mice were provided with unlimited access to either a freely rotating wheel or a locked one. After a month, the mice were examined in a variety of athletic tasks to test their mobility, coordination, and muscle strength. The research team then compared the performance of the runners with that of the non-runners. Next, the team measured dopamine release in brain slices from the same mice, collected from the striatum, a region that plays a key role in movement and motivation. 

The findings revealed that mice in the exercise group had 50% higher dopamine release than their sedentary counterparts. Notably, while females ran twice as much as the males did, they saw equivalent boosts both in the hormone and in their motor performance. According to the authors, this suggests that a certain amount of exercise is sufficient to bolster dopamine and, once this is achieved, further elevation does not occur. 

Funding for the study was provided by National Institutes of Health grants R01NS135884 and U19NS107616. More study funding was provided by the Marlene and Paolo Fresco Institute for Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders and the Parkinson’s Foundation.

Guendalina Bastioli, PhD, a former postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone Health, is the study lead author. She is now at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. 

Other NYU Langone researchers involved in the study are Maria Mancini, PhD; Jyotiben Patel, PhD; Begoña Gamallo-Lana, PhD; Jennifer Arnold, PhD; and Adam Mar, PhD.

About NYU Langone Health
NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient, Inc. has ranked NYU Langone No. 1 out of 118 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation for four years in a row, and U.S. News & World Report recently ranked four of its clinical specialties number one in the nation. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 320 outpatient locations in the New York area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise.

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