Better brain connectivity is associated with higher total fat mass and lower visceral adipose tissue in military pilots Cárdenas Vélez, David Madinabeitia, Iker Vera Vílchez, Jesús Teresa Galván, Carlos de Alarcón, Francisco Jiménez Rodríguez, Raimundo Catena Martínez, Andrés Cognitive neuroscience Neurology Research by D.C., I.M., J.V. and F.A. is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Agencia Estatal de Investigacion) grant DEP2017-89879-R. Also, funding was provided by CEMIX (Centro Mixto UGRMADOC, Spain) grant PIN 11. The authors are indebted to Juan F. Navas for his help in crafting the article. The authors deeply thank the collaboration of the pilots of BHELA-1, their commanders, specially LieutenantColonel Santiago Juan Fenandez Ortiz-Repiso and commander Alberto Jose Cherino Munoz, and the personnel of MADOC (Army of Spain), especially Lieutenant-Colonel Lorenzo Rebollo Gomez. A lack of exercise leads to being overweight or obese affecting regional brain structure and functional connectivity associated with impaired cognitive function and dementia. In recent decades, several studies of healthy individuals suggest that adiposity may also produce negative independent effects on the brain. We aimed to investigate the relationship between body composition – total fat mass (TFM) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) – with white matter (WM) integrity using a whole-brain approach in military pilots. Twenty-three military helicopter pilots (Mage = 36.79; SD = 8.00; MBMI = 25.48; SD = 2.49) took part in the study. Brain volumes were studied using diffusion tensor imaging technique by means of a 3T Magnetom Tim Trio. Measurements of body mass index (BMI), TFM and VAT were obtained using Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA). The results showed that, on one hand, higher TFM was associated with higher white matter fractional anisotropy (FA) and, on the other hand, higher VAT was associated with lower FA. Data showed that TFM and VAT are the critical factors underlying WM integrity in combat helicopter pilots. The authors suggest that fat presence enhance brain connectivity while there is no excess, specifically in VAT. 2020-10-21T12:04:43Z 2020-10-21T12:04:43Z 2020-01-17 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Cárdenas, D., Madinabeitia, I., Vera, J. et al. Better brain connectivity is associated with higher total fat mass and lower visceral adipose tissue in military pilots. Sci Rep 10, 610 (2020). [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-57345-3] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/63847 10.1038/s41598-019-57345-3 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España Springer Nature