Converging evidence demonstrates that physical activity evokes a brain state characterized by distinctive changes in brain metabolism and cortical function. Human studies have shown that physical activity leads to a generalized increase in electroencephalography power across regions and frequencies, and a global increase in brain nonoxidative metabolism of carbohydrate substrates. This nonoxidative consumption of carbohydrate has been hypothesized to include increased de novo synthesis of amino acid neurotransmitters, especially glutamate and GABA. Here, we conducted a series of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies in human volunteers before and after vigorous exercise (Ն80% of predicted maximal heart rate). Results showed that the resonance signals of both glutamate and GABA increased significantly in the visual cortex following exercise. We further demonstrated a similar increase in glutamate following exercise in an executive region, the anterior cingulate cortex. The increase in glutamate was similar when using echo times of 30 and 144 ms, indicating that exercise-related T2 relaxation effects across this range of relaxation times did not account for the findings. In addition, we found preliminary evidence that more physical activity during the preceding week predicts higher resting glutamate levels. Overall, the results are consistent with an exercise-induced expansion of the cortical pools of glutamate and GABA, and add to a growing understanding of the distinctive brain state associated with physical activity. A more complete understanding of this brain state may reveal important insights into mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of physical exercise in neuropsychiatric disorders, neurorehabilitation, aging, and cognition.

Exercise-associated hyponatremia can occur simultaneously with dehydration and cannot be predicted by weight checks at races.

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With insulin-resistance or type 2 diabetes mellitus, mismatches between mitochondrial fatty acid fuel delivery and oxidative phosphorylation/tricarboxylic acid cycle activity may contribute to inordinate accumulation of short- or medium-chain acylcarnitine fatty acid derivatives (markers of incomplete long-chain fatty acid oxidation [FAO]). We reasoned that incomplete FAO in muscle would be ameliorated concurrent with improved insulin sensitivity and fitness following a ~14 wk training and weight loss intervention in obese, sedentary, insulin-resistant women. Contrary to this hypothesis, overnight-fasted and exercise-induced plasma C4-C14 acylcarnitines did not differ between pre-intervention and post-intervention phases. These metabolites all increased robustly with exercise (~45% of pre-intervention VO2peak) and decreased during a 20 min cool-down. This supports the idea that, regardless of insulin sensitivity and fitness, intramitochondrial muscle β-oxidation and attendant incomplete FAO are closely tethered to absolute ATP turnover rate. Acute exercise also led to branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) acylcarnitine derivative patterns suggestive of rapid diminution of BCAA flux through mitochondrial branched-chain ketoacid dehydrogenase complex. We confirmed our prior novel observation that weight loss/fitness intervention alters plasma xenometabolites (i.e., cis-3,4-methylene-heptanoylcarnitine and γ-butyrobetaine [a co-metabolite possibly derived in part from gut bacteria]), suggesting that host metabolic health regulated gut microbe metabolism. Finally, we considered if acylcarnitine metabolites signal to muscle-innervating afferents: palmitoylcarnitine at concentrations as low as 1–10 μM activated a sub-set (~2.5–5%) of these neurons ex vivo. This supports the hypothesis that in addition to tracking exercise-associated shifts in fuel metabolism, muscle acylcarnitines act as exertion signals to short-loop somatosensory-motor circuits or to the brain.

Novel plasma metabolite patterns reflective of improved metabolic health (insulin sensitivity, fitness, reduced body weight) were identified before and after a 14–17 wk weight loss and exercise intervention in sedentary, obese insulin-resistant women. To control for potential confounding effects of diet- or microbiome-derived molecules on the systemic metabolome, sampling was during a tightly-controlled feeding test week paradigm. Pairwise and multivariate analysis revealed intervention- and insulin-sensitivity associated: (1) Changes in plasma xeno-metabolites (“non-self” metabolites of dietary or gut microbial origin) following an oral glucose tolerance test (e.g. higher post-OGTT propane-1,2,3-tricarboxylate [tricarballylic acid]) or in the overnight-fasted state (e.g., lower γ-tocopherol); (2) Increased indices of saturated very long chain fatty acid elongation capacity; (3) Increased post-OGTT α-ketoglutaric acid (α-KG), fasting α-KG inversely correlated with Matsuda index, and altered patterns of malate, pyruvate and glutamine hypothesized to stem from improved mitochondrial efficiency and more robust oxidation of glucose. The results support a working model in which improved metabolic health modifies host metabolism in parallel with altering systemic exposure to xeno-metabolites. This highlights that interpretations regarding the origins of peripheral blood or urinary “signatures” of insulin resistance and metabolic health must consider the potentially important contribution of gut-derived metabolites toward the host's metabolome.