The effect of intensive dance- excercise intervention on cognition and brain plasticity in healthy seniors and patients with mild cognitive impairement
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | The main aim of the study was to createa structured dance-movement program for healthy seniors and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and to evaluate the effect of the intervention program on structure and function of the brain of these people. We have also tried to find functional fitness and postural stability.There were 120 participants in the study (age up 60), randomly assigned to either a dance intervention (DI) group or a life as usual (LAU) group. The 6-month intensive dance-exercise program was carried out three times a week and included 50 dance exercise sessions, each lasting for 60min. Three subtests of Senior fitnesstest (6Min Walk Test, Chair Stand test, 8Foot Up and Go test) were used to determine the level of functional fitness. The static posturography method assessed the level of balance abilities in one position, BMI measurement, detailed neuropsychological testing and brain MRI encompassing T1 structural and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The measurements were performed at baseline and after 6 months.The practical improvement in results of static posturography (COP, forward backward deflection, right-left deflection)was found in the group with MCI which practiced dance. We found improvement in both groups in 6 minutes test after the intervention program. The positive effect was also found in the healthy elderly in Chair Stand test and 8 Foot Up and Go test after the dance intervention. In DI group, we found a cortical thickening in inferior temporal gyrus and lateral occipital gyrus of right hemisphere; andthe increase in frontoparietal control network intranetwork connectivity. Theposterior inferior temporal cluster is broadly connected to regions associated with modality-specific processing in the visual, auditory, and motor domains engaged in the ventral visual, auditory-motor, and dorsal attention networks, all implicated in learning new skilled dancing movements |