Physical Activity Affects Brain Integrity in HIV+ Individuals

Abstract

Prior research has suggested benefits of aerobic physical activity (PA) on cognition and brain volumes in HIV uninfected (HIV−) individuals, however, few studies have explored the relationships between PA and brain integrity (cognition and structural brain volumes) in HIV-infected (HIV +) individuals. Seventy HIV + individuals underwent neuropsychological testing, structural neuroimaging, laboratory tests, and completed a PA questionnaire, recalling participation in walking, running, and jogging activities over the last year. A PA engagement score of weekly metabolic equivalent (MET) hr of activity was calculated using a compendium of PAs. HIV + individuals were classified as physically active (any energy expended above resting expenditure, n = 22) or sedentary (n = 48). Comparisons of neuropsychological performance, grouped by executive and motor domains, and brain volumes were completed between groups. Physically active and sedentary HIV + individuals had similar demographic and laboratory values, but the active group had higher education (14.0 vs. 12.6 years, p = .034). Physically active HIV + individuals performed better on executive (p = .040, unadjusted; p = .043, adjusted) but not motor function (p = .17). In addition, among the physically active group the amount of physical activity (METs) positively correlated with executive (Pearson’s r = 0.45, p = 0.035) but not motor (r = 0.21; p = .35) performance. In adjusted analyses the physically active HIV + individuals had larger putamen volumes (p = .019). A positive relationship exists between PA and brain integrity in HIV + individuals. Results from the present study emphasize the importance to conduct longitudinal interventional investigation to determine if PA improves brain integrity in HIV + individuals.

Effectiveness of Progressive Resistive Exercise (PRE) in the context of HIV: systematic review and meta-analysis using the Cochrane Collaboration protocol

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Physical activity correlates in people living with HIV/AIDS: a systematic review of 45 studies

“…Out of 84 potentially eligible studies, 45 were included in this review [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80]. The search strategy and reasons for exclusion are shown in Figure 1.…”

The Aging Brain With HIV Infection: Effects of Alcoholism or Hepatitis C Comorbidity

“…Brain tissue abnormalities have been reported to correlate with nadir CD4 cell counts (Thompson et al, 2005 ; Jernigan et al, 2011 ; Kallianpur et al, 2012 ; Hua et al, 2013 ). However, HIV individuals with an active life style (energy use above resting expenditure) were found to have a larger putamen (Ortega et al, 2015 ), and longitudinal study reveals that increasing CD4 counts (notwithstanding IRIS) are associated with increases in subcortical gray matter volumes (Fennema-Notestine et al, 2013 ) and slower tissue volume declines (Pfefferbaum et al, 2014 ).…”