Cardiorespiratory fitness and gray matter volume in the temporal, frontal, and cerebellar regions in the general population.

Objective: To analyze the association between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and global and local brain volumes.Participants and Methods: We studied 2103 adults (21-84 years old) from 2 independent population-based cohorts (Study of Health in Pomerania, examinations from June 25, 2008, through September 30, 2012). Cardiorespiratory fitness was measured using peak oxygen uptake (VO(2)peak), oxygen uptake at the anaerobic threshold (VO2@AT), and maximal power output from cardiopulmonary exercise testing on a bicycle ergometer. Magnetic resonance imaging brain data were analyzed by voxel-based morphometry using regression models with adjustment for age, sex, education, smoking, body weight, systolic blood pressure, glycated hemoglobin level, and intracranial volume.Results: Volumetric analyses revealed associations of CRF with gray matter (GM) volume and total brain volume. After multivariable adjustment, a 1-standard deviation increase in VO(2)peak was related to a 5.31 cm(3) (95% CI, 3.27 to 7.35 cm(3)) higher GM volume. Whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed significant positive relations between CRF and local GM volumes. The VO(2)peak was strongly associated with GM volume of the left middle temporal gyrus (228 voxels), the right hippocampal gyrus (146 voxels), the left orbitofrontal cortex (348 voxels), and the bilateral cingulate cortex (68 and 43 voxels).Conclusion: Cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with GM volume, total brain volume, and specific GM and white matter clusters in brain areas not primarily involved in movement processing. These results, from a representative population sample, suggest that CRF might contribute to improved brain health and might, therefore, decelerate pathology-specific GM decrease

Observation of events with a large rapidity gap in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

In deep inelastic, neutral current scattering of electrons and protons at √ s = 296 GeV, we observe in the ZEUS detector events with a large rapidity gap in the hadronic final state. They occur in the region of small Bjorken x and are observed up to Q<sup>2</sup> of 100 GeV<sup>2</sup>. They account for about 5% of the events with Q<sup>2</sup> ≥ 10 GeV<sup>2</sup>. Their general properties are inconsistent with the dominant mechanism of deep inelastic scattering, where color is transferred between the scattered quark and the proton remnant, and suggest that the underlying production mechanism is the diffractive dissociation of the virtual photon