Introduction: Alzheimer's disease, the most common neurodegenerative disease in the elderly. brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays an important role in the maintenance and operation of systems neurotransmission and involved in the pathology and treatment of mental disorders, thus The aim of present study was to investigate the effect of 8 and 12 weeks aerobic exercise on plasma levels of BDNF in elderly women .
Methodology: For this purpose 20 elderly women living in nursing homes of Bojnoord city aged between 60 and 70 years, were randomly and based on MMSE test divided into experimental (n=10) and control (n=10) group. Aerobic training was conducted for 8 and 12 weeks, 3 days per week with 50-70% HRR, for 60 minutes. Blood sampling were done in pre-test, 48 hours after last session in 8th week (mid-test) and 48 hours after last session in 12th week (post-test). Plasma levels of BDNF were measured using ELISA method. Data analysis was performed using an independent t-test and repeated measures at a significance level of P˂0.05.
Results: The independent t-test results showed that BDNF levels at post-test (12 weeks) in the aerobic exercise group was significantly higher compared to control group (p=0.018). The results of repeated measure showed that plasma BDNF levels after 8 and 12 weeks of aerobic training (mid and post test) significantly higher than pre-test in elderly women (P values respectively 0.021 and 0.004).
Discussion: Nascimento et al. (2015) demonstrated that 16 weeks of multimodal training (aerobic, resistance and coordination training) (3 sessions per week, each session lasts 1 hour with an intensity of 60-80% of HRmax) improves environment serum BDNF level and cognitive function in elderly with mild cognitive impairment. They concluded that physical activity may help on cognitive function in elderly people with cognitive disorders. Taken together, these results indicated beneficial effect of aerobic exercise on BDNF levels in older women and likely increase duration of training can cause a pronounced impact.