Examining Alzheimer's Disease Modifiable Risk Factors: Impact of Physical Activity and Diet on Neuroanatomy and Behaviour in Mice

Dementia, a global public health challenge, is significantly influenced by lifestyle factors such as obesity. Despite the growing body of literature, the effects of obesity and intervention strategies on the brain remain largely unexplored. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of three intervention strategies: physical activity, low-fat diet, and the combination of both, in the 3xTgAD mice, and their wild-type (WT) counterparts, both fed a high-fat diet. We hypothesized that interventions would mitigate the effects of the high-fat diet on weight, behavior, and brain anatomy in 3xTgAD and WT mice. We collected longitudinal weight measurements and T1-weighted (T1-w) magnetic resonance images (MRI) at two, four, and six months of age. Additionally, we performed memory tests (Morris water maze and novel object recognition tests) after the last MRI scan. In this dataset you will find: Scans in the DICOM format in the folder DICOM_files Longitudinal weight measurements from 2 months on in weight.csv Behavioral data (Morris Water Maze in MWM_analysis.csv and Novel Object Recognition test in NOR_analysis.csv file) Demographic data in the demographics.csv file Mice IDs in IDs.csv Information regarding mouse attrition in IDs.pdf Quality Control data per timepoint in QC.csv For the second upload (2026), we are additionally including: Raw Novel Object Recognition and Morris Water Maze videos cut at 10 min A spreadsheet describing the mice ID of mice appearing in each video (based on handwritten entries to lab notes, scanned and included too) R scripts used to analyze weight and behaviour data (NOR, MWM) as a consequence of revising the manuscript R scripts for the spatial gene enrichment analysis R scripts for the Deformation-Based Morphometry analyses: Scripts available in: statistics_DBM\scriptpopulation average and mask in: statistics_DBM\mice_population_average_template_and_masksStatistic files in: statistics_DBM\stats_mincStatistic plots in: statistics_DBM\DBMplots and statistics_DBM\stats_plots Plus, we added a co-author due to their recent contributions on data analysis, discussions, and manuscript revisions (Stephanie Tullo) This work was supported by Healthy Brains Healthy Lives (CLG; https://www.healthybrains.org/) and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (CLG, CA, MU;https://www.frqs.gouv.qc.ca/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection, or analysis.