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Interventional studies suggest that changes in physical fitness affect brain function and structure. We studied the influence of high intensity physical exercise on hippocampal volume and metabolism in 17 young healthy male adults during a 6-week exercise program compared with matched controls. We further aimed to relate these changes to hypothesized changes in exercisedinduced brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α). We show profound improvement of physical fitness in most subjects and a positive correlation between the degree of fitness improvement and increased BDNF levels. We unexpectedly observed an average volume decrease of about 2%, which was restricted to right hippocampal subfields CA2/3, subiculum, and dentate gyrus and which correlated with fitness improvement and increased BDNF levels negatively. This result indicates that mainly those subjects who did not benefit from the exercise program show decreased hippocampal volume, reduced BDNF levels, and increased TNF-α concentrations. While spectroscopy results do not indicate any neuronal loss (unchanged N-acetylaspartate levels) decreased glutamate-glutamine levels were observed in the right anterior hippocampus in the exercise group only. Responder characteristics need to be studied in more detail. Our results point to an important role of the inflammatory response after exercise on changes in hippocampal structure.

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Evidence suggests that obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with an overactive error control system. A key role in error detection and control has been ascribed to the fronto-cingulate system. However, the exact functional interplay between the single components of this network in OCD is largely unknown. Therefore, the present study combined a univariate data analysis and effective connectivity analysis using dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to examine error control in 21 patients with OCD and 21 matched healthy controls. All subjects performed an adapted version of the Stroop color-word task while undergoing fMRI scans. Enhanced activation in the fronto-cingulate system could be detected in OCD patients during the incongruent task condition. Additionally, task-related modulation of effective connectivity from the dorsal ACC to left DLPFC was significantly stronger in OCD patients. These findings are consistent with an overactive error control system in OCD subserving suppression of prepotent responses during decision-making.

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