Is exercise-in-a-bottle likely to proffer new insights into Alzheimer's disease?

摘要

The case for exercise in brain health is continuing to deepen to the point where it seems the weight room is as critical for brain function as it is for building muscle mass. Increased cardiovascular function, improved psychological profile, increased neurotrophic factors, and neurogenesis are but a few of the factors linked to the benefits of vigorous exercise. A mechanistic understanding of how exercise can bring about such a pleotrophic range of changes has remained elusive prior to the study by Swerdlow and colleagues published in this issue of Journal of Neurochemistry (Lezi et al. 2013). Insightfully, these investigators used the most elementary product of exercise physiology, lactate, to mimic exercise. The authors found that lactate administered to resting mice produced many of the same benefits to brain mitochondria density found during extensive exercise (Fig. 1). This elegant and simple approach opens exercise benefits to pharmacological intervention, possibly with lactate analogs if not lactate itself.