The impact of endurance training and table soccer on brain metabolites in schizophrenia.
Higher glutamate and glutamine (together: Glx) and lower N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) levels were reported in schizophrenia. Endurance training normalizes NAA in the hippocampus, but its effects on other metabolites in the brain and the relationship of metabolites to clinical symptoms remain unknown. For 12 weeks, 20 schizophrenia inpatients (14 men, 6 women) and 23 healthy controls (16 men, 7 women) performed endurance training and a control group of 21 schizophrenia inpatients (15 men, 6 women) played table soccer. A computer-assisted cognitive performance training program was introduced after 6 weeks. We assessed cognitive performance, psychopathological symptoms, and everyday functioning at baseline and after 6 and 12 weeks and performed single voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the hippocampus, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and thalamus. We quantified NAA, Glx, total creatine (tCr), calculated NAA/tCr and Glx/tCr and correlated these ratios with physical fitness, clinical and neurocognitive scores, and everyday functioning. At baseline, in both schizophrenia groups NAA/tCr was lower in the left DLPFC and left hippocampus and Glx/tCr was lower in the hippocampus than in the healthy controls. After 6 weeks, NAA/tCr increased in the left DLPFC in both schizophrenia groups. Brain metabolites did not change significantly in the hippocampus or thalamus, but the correlation between NAA/tCr and Glx/tCr normalized in the left DLPFC. Global Assessment of Functioning improvements correlated with NAA/tCr changes in the left DLPFC. In our study, endurance training and table soccer induced normalization of brain metabolite ratios in the brain circuitry associated with neuronal and synaptic elements, including metabolites of the glutamatergic system.
['Rauchmann|Boris-Stephan|BS|http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4547-6240', 'Ghaseminejad|Farhad|F|', 'Keeser|Daniel|D|', 'Keller-Varady|Katriona|K|', 'Schneider-Axmann|Thomas|T|', 'Takahashi|Shun|S|', 'Karali|Temmuz|T|', 'Helms|Gunther|G|', 'Dechent|Peter|P|', 'Maurus|Isabel|I|', 'Hasan|Alkomiet|A|', 'Wobrock|Thomas|T|', 'Ertl-Wagner|Birgit|B|', 'Schmitt|Andrea|A|', 'Malchow|Berend|B|', 'Falkai|Peter|P|']
D000328:Adult D001224:Aspartic Acid D001921:Brain D003071:Cognition D003401:Creatine D000076663:Endurance Training D005260:Female D018698:Glutamic Acid D005973:Glutamine D006624:Hippocampus D006801:Humans D007297:Inpatients D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy D008297:Male D009474:Neurons D017397:Prefrontal Cortex D012559:Schizophrenia D013788:Thalamus
Schizophrenia Glx NAA Clinical symptoms Aerobic exercise MRS