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Role of Brain Structure in Predicting Adherence to a Physical Activity Regimen
Swathi Gujral1, Edward McAuley, Lauren E Oberlin
1From the Department of Psychology (Gujral, Oberlin, Erickson), University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Center for Neural Basis of Cognition (Gujral, Oberlin, Erickson), Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Department of Kinesiology and Community Health (McAuley), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Department of Psychology (McAuley, Kramer), Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Objective:
Physical activity (PA) is important for maintaining health throughout the lifespan. However, adherence to PA regimens is poor with approximately 50% of older adults terminating activity intervention programs within 6 months. In this study, we tested whether gray matter volume and white matter microstructural integrity before the initiation of a PA intervention predicts PA adherence.
Methods:
One hundred fifty-nine adults aged 60 to 80 years were randomly assigned to a moderate-intensity aerobic walking condition or a nonaerobic stretching and toning condition. Participants engaged in supervised exercise 3 times per week for 12 months. Data were collected for a period of 1 year. Voxel-based morphometry and tract-based spatial statistics protocols were used to process neuroimaging data, and ordinary least squares regression models with bootstrapping were used to analyze voxelwise neural predictors of PA adherence.
Results:
Greater volume in several regions predicted greater PA adherence, including prefrontal, motor, somatosensory, temporal, and parietal regions (p < .01). We also found that higher fractional anisotropy in several white matter tracts predicted greater PA adherence (pFDR-corrected < .05), including the superior longitudinal fasciculus, anterior thalamic radiation, forceps minor, and body of the corpus callosum.
Conclusions:
These findings provide preliminary support for macro- and microstructural neural predictors of PA adherence and may translate to other health behaviors and behavioral goal pursuit more broadly.
