Habitual exercise in youth: A ʻbrainyʼ idea

Abstract

The impact of exercise training on cerebrovascular health is a hot topic, with an increasing focus on preventing and delaying neurodegenerative diseases. Yet, there is a paucity of information regarding the effect of habitual exercise on cerebrovascular function, particularly in children and adolescents. This age range is often under-represented in research but can offer important insight concerning the trajectory of health. It is also unclear what the consequences of a lack of habitual exercise are for cerebrovascular health in youth.To address this gap in the literature, in an article in this issue of Experimental Physiology, Talbot et al. investigated both cerebral blood flow (CBF) and cerebrovascular reactivity to carbon dioxide in youth, while accounting for different stages of maturation (using a somatic measure of maturity -predicted age at peak height velocity or PHV) (Talbot, Perkins, Tallon et al., 2023). This study required a considerable number of participants to account for sex, maturation and training status. The authors reported novel findings that endurance-trained youth had higher global CBF at rest (using internal carotid artery (ICA) + vertebral artery blood flow assessments) in comparison to untrained counterparts. In the ʻmatureʼ adolescents, cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with global CBF. Post hoc analysis revealed that untrained post-PHV (or ʻmatureʼ) males demonstrated lower global CBF compared with trained post-PHV males, with no effect of training found in post-PHV females or younger (pre-PHV) groups. Untrained youth were defined as ʻnot taking part in regular exerciseʼ or not meeting established guidelines for physical activity. Although This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.