Art Kramer and Chuck Hillman

Sponsor: NIH/NIA

Breaking prolonged sitting with high intensity interval training to improve cognitive and brain health in older adults

Capitalizing on Physical Activity intensity as the major limiting factor in peripheral catecholamine increase, we propose a randomized crossover trial to compare 2 conditions lasting 3.5 h each: sitting interrupted by 6-min HIIT every 30 min (HIIT Breaks), and sitting interrupted by 6-min social interactions (SIT) to address 3 aims: (i) to assess feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and safety of HIIT Breaks to improve neurocognitive function; (ii) to quantify the differences between conditions in the change in P3b amplitude and latency; (iii) to explore the differences between conditions in attentional control, episodic memory, and functional connectivity (FC) of the frontoparietal and default mode networks. Our long-term objective is to test the chronic effects of HIIT breaks on the integrity of the locus coeruleus, frontoparietal function, and cognitive functions affected by aging and AD in cognitively healthy and cognitively impaired seniors.