Effects of aerobic exercise and resistance training on cognitive function: Comparative study based on FNDC5/irisin/BDNF pathway

Introduction Exercise has been recommended to suppress or prevent this decline. Aerobic exercise (AE) may suppress cognitive decline via the fibronectin type III domain-containing protein 5 (FNDC5)/irisin/brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) pathway, and resistance training (RT) has a preventive effect on cognitive decline. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. This study verified the differences in the effects of AE and RT in suppressing and preventing cognitive decline based on the FNDC5/irisin/BDNF pathway. Methods We divided senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 into three groups: control (CON), AE, and RT and evaluated their memory during exercise intervention through a novel object recognition (NOR) task. We quantified FNDC5/irisin, mBDNF, and TrkB in the hippocampus using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and FNDC5 in skeletal muscle using western blotting (WB). Results Behavioral analysis using NOR showed that values for both AE and RT were significantly greater than those for CON. WB analysis showed that the peripheral FNDC5 expression in the skeletal muscle was increased in AE. The expression levels of FNDC5/irisin and mBDNF in the hippocampus were significantly increased in both AE and RT compared with that in CON, but that if TrkB was increased only in AE. Conclusion No significant difference was observed between AE and RT in the inhibitory effect on age-related cognitive decline, and both groups were effective. The FNDC5/Irisin/BDNF pathway, which was the focus of this experiment, may be specific to aerobic exercise. The mechanism that suppresses cognitive decline may differ depending on the type of exercise.