Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2001 March;41(1):11-7

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

18F-FDG PET mapping of regional brain activity in runners

Tashiro M. ^{1, 3}, Itoh M. ¹, Fujimoto T. ², Fujiwara T. ¹, Ota H. ¹, Kubota K. ⁵, Higuchi M. ³, Okamura N. ³, Ishii K. ⁴, Bereczki D. ⁶, Sasaki H. ³

From the 1 Division of Nuclear Medicine Cyclotron and Radioisotope Center 2 Department of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, School of Medicine 3 Department of Gerontology and Respiratory Medicine School of Medicine 4 Division of Nuclear Engineering Faculty of Engineering, Tohoku University 5 Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiology Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan 6 Department of Neurology University Medical School of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

Background. To exam­ine region­al meta­bol­ic chang­es in the ­human ­brain ­induced by ­free run­ning in ­upright pos­ture.
Methods. Experimental ­design: region­al ­brain chang­es in glu­cose ­uptake ­induced by run­ning ­were exam­ined by com­par­ing ­brain imag­es ­obtained by posi­tron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy (PET) and 18F-flu­o­rod­e­ox­y­glu­cose (FDG). Setting: the ­study was con­duct­ed at a ­research insti­tute and ­involved par­tic­i­pa­tion of ­healthy ­young vol­un­teers. Data sam­pling and anal­y­sis ­required spe­cial imag­ing ­device and spe­cial com­put­er hard­ware/soft­ware. Participants: sub­jects ­were 17 ­healthy ­male vol­un­teers. They ­were divid­ed at ran­dom ­into two ­equal ­groups, ­those who ran 4-5 km and the oth­ers sat in the ­room. Measures: dif­fer­enc­es in region­al cere­bral glu­cose ­uptake ­between run­ners and con­trol ­groups ­were ­assessed sta­tis­ti­cal­ly. Plasma glu­cose lev­el was ­also meas­ured and glo­bal cere­bral ­uptake was esti­mat­ed.
Results. Running was asso­ciat­ed ­with a rel­a­tive ­increase of glu­cose ­uptake in the tem­po­rop­a­rie­tal asso­ci­a­tion cor­tex, occip­i­tal cor­tex, pre­mo­tor cor­tex and the cer­e­bel­lar ver­mis. The high­est activ­ity was not­ed in the tem­po­rop­a­rie­tal asso­ci­a­tion cor­tex. Activity of the pri­mary sen­sor­i­mo­tor cor­tex was high­er in the super­ome­di­al ­part (leg ­motor ­area) ­than the lat­er­al ­part (tho­rax and arm).
Conclusions. Running aug­ment­ed ener­gy con­sump­tion in the parie­to-occip­i­tal ­region rel­a­tive to the ­motor ­area, prob­ably due to the high­er ener­gy con­sump­tion nec­es­sary for inte­gra­tion of mul­ti­mod­al sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion ­than for gen­er­a­tion of ­motor out­put. Our ­results indi­cate ­that FDG PET is a use­ful ­tool for ­brain map­ping ­under var­i­ous phys­io­log­i­cal con­di­tions.