Significance Of Brain Network On Physical Activity Among Obstructive Lung Disease

Background: Low physical activity (PA) in chronic obstructive lung disease (OLD) can be associated with mental disorder such as cognitive impairment. However, the effect of PA on brain function is still unknown. Aims: To explore the association between PA and the brain network parameters in OLD patients. Methods: We measured PA, pulmonary function, questionnaire and brain network brain network parameters, using 49 subjects’ resting-state functional MRI data over 40 years old with COPD/asthma/ACO/healthy (13/16/12/8) (37males, 67.8 years old). Preprocessing was performed with SPM8 and in-house software developed on MATLAB. Functional connectivity (FC) was calculated by correlation coefficients between each gray matter voxel (6×6×6 mm) pair for network analysis. PA duration at each metabolic equivalents (METs) and Exercise (Ex) (METs × PA duration) were measured with a triaxial accelerometer. Results: Mean EX was 3.3. Compared with healthy, OLD is also significantly worse in MOCA-J (24 v.s. 27; p<0.005) and CAT score (12.8 v.s. 6 points; p<0.05). OLD also was significantly lower in duration of PA at ≥3 METs, ≥4METs, and Ex (51 v.s 74 min, 11 v.s 25min, 2.5 v.s. 4.0, 5.9METs*hr; p<0.05, respectively) than healthy. ≥3METs, ≥4METs and EX were significantly correlated with FC in the left temporal association area (p<0.05). Conclusions: The study shows the left temporal association area in the central nervous system was involved in the pathophysiology of physical inactivity in OLD. Since the area is said to be related to visual and hearing brain network, the pathophysiology may explain the mechanism of mental disorder in OLD.