Brittany Intzandt
I am currently a doctoral candidate under the supervision of Drs Claudine Gauthier and Louis Bherer. Health care systems and societies will experience an unprecedented increase in the number of older adults, presenting a unique strain to the health care system due to cognitive decline that can occur with aging. Importantly, there is evidence that exercise can stimulate changes in the brain, including enhancing brain hemodynamics like brain blood flow and brain vascular reactivity, which can improve cognition. For me, it is of upmost importance to understand how non-pharmacological strategies, like exercise, can influence brain health in aging and prevent cognitive decline. This would allow older adults to age healthy and with a high quality of life. Therefore, my thesis aims to look at a combination of brain vascular reactivity and blood flow, exercise, and other physiological outcomes known to influence brain health in aging. Early results from our work indicate that those with higher fitness have higher brain blood flow and there is likely an influence of sex and obesity. This work will increase the evidence for the beneficial effect that exercise has on brain health and cognition in aging and help to further comprehend the underlying mechanisms that occur in the brain due to exercise. Furthermore, it will lead the way for studies to investigate other physiological outcomes that could be modulating the relationships between aging, brain health and exercise. My long-term research goals are to continue to study the positive role that exercise has on brain health across the life span and in different chronic diseases.
