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Abstract #4927

Exercise selectively increases cerebral blood flow in the postcentral gyrus in patients with Huntington’s disease

Jessica Steventon1, Hannah Furby2,3, Richard Wise3, and Kevin Murphy1

1School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 2Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, University College London, London, United Kingdom, 3School of Psychology, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

The therapeutic potential of exercise - a potent trigger for both neurogenesis and vascular plasticity - is currently a hot research topic in neurodegenerative diseases. Here we tested whether a single 20-minute bout of aerobic exercise was sufficient to induce changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) in people with Huntington’s disease (HD). We find a transient and selective increase in CBF in the postcentral gyrus in HD participants following exercise, a region with reduced intrinsic functional connectivity in HD patients, with no change in healthy controls. The CBF change was unrelated to clinical and genetic markers of disease.

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