The bicycle can help restore neural connections damaged by the Parkinson

For this study, the researchers recruited nine adult participants with Parkinson’s disease to undergo 12 cycling sessions over a period of four weeks. All participants had deep cerebral stimulation devices (DBS) which had already been established before the start of the study.

“This study … exploited DBs for its unique ability to record neural activity in the brain regions surrounding the lead of stimulation,” said Shaikh. “Using this capacity, researchers have examined how exercise potentially influences the brain function.”

Scientists have used an adaptive cycling program where, over time, the bicycle has “learned” how each participant occurred by cycling. For example, while a game screen allowed participants to know their pedaling intensity, the bicycle would add or delete resistance according to the level of effort of each pilot.

At the conclusion of the study, Shaikh and his team found that after 12 bicycle sessions, the study participants demonstrated a measurable change in the brain signals involved in both engine control and movement.

“This observation provided proof in principle that exercise changes the brain. He still informed us that the change only occurs when the exercise is done in a persistent, consistent manner and on (a) a long period of time. From a mechanistic point of view, he told us that drivers of such a change can reside outside of – The key structure involved in Parkinson’s disease. »»
– Aasef Shaikh MD, PhD

“(The) main point to remember from the patient’s point of view is that one must keep (one) active lifestyle, constantly doing a physical exercise ” to follow Parkinson’s disease,” said Shaikh. “Analogous to this is to do” mental exercise “- which will help to remain mentally healthy and cognitive health. The abolition of the scientific and mechanistic point of view is that the change induced by the exercise (plasticity) occurs, but the driver is outside the central gray nuclei.

“We would like to expand this mechanistic survey with more imaging and structure to function sets of correlation tools at our disposal,” added Shaikh. “We would also like to extend the effort, diffusing cycling technology in multicenter tests. We would like to explore if other exercise methods have similar advantages. ”

Mnt spoke with Daniel H. Danehvar, MD, PHD, head of the rehabilitation of brain lesions to the mass general Brigham and associate professor at the Harvard Medical School, about this study.

Daneshvar said it was an encouraging and creative study that answers a critical question: to what extent does exercise leads to real changes in the brain in patients with Parkinson’s disease?

“There is a robust body of the literature which shows that exercise is the best intervention for people with Parkinson’s disease, and I often tell my patients if there was a pill that worked as well as exercise for Parkinson’s disease, it would be a billion dollars. However, we do not have a complete understanding of the functioning of the exercise on the brain. ”
– Daniel H. Daneshvar, MD, PHD

“For patients, these are promising evidence that exercise can help re -enter certain parts of the brain affected by Parkinson’s disease,” said Daneshvar. “This alignment between practical therapy and readings in the circuit is what makes this remarkable for clinicians who advise patients why the exercise works so well, and is so important, for patients with Parkinson’s disease.”

Mnt He also spoke with Samer Tabbal, MD, a neurologist and director of the Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute, which is part of Baptist Health South Florida, about this research.

“The engine benefit of the exercise on patients with Parkinson’s disease has been demonstrated in multiple previous studies,” said Tabbal. “This study is a good attempt to explain how the exercise offers such motor advantages by demonstrating how the exercise changes the behavior of cells even in a damaged brain. The capacity of the behavior of brain cells to be changed, including the formation of new connections, is called .  »

“The interest is the conclusion that the dynamic cycle had no significant immediate effect on the measures of the results, but has had defined long-term effects,” he continued. “This may suggest that the advantage of exercise is a long -term objective and that patients should exercise with long -term hope without expecting immediate advantages.

Tabbal said that knowledge is power, defined as the ability to change, the more we know how the exercise improves brain function, the better we can use the effective exercise to improve patient symptoms.

“In the longer term, if we know how the exercise improves brain function, we could find other ways to achieve the same advantage or even better by other means, such as the use of drugs, electrical stimulation, magnetic stimulation, music or light therapy,” he added.