Fig. 5: Effect of exercise on cell-type-specific aging clocks.

a, Schematic of voluntary wheel running experiment and UMAP projection of single-cell transcriptomes. For the exercise cohort, 4 young (4.5 months) or 3–4 old (21.5 months) male mice were transferred into cages with either a freely spinning wheel or no wheel. Wheel rotations were tracked to verify that mice indeed exercised. After 5 weeks, SVZ niches were collected, so mice were ~6 months and 23 months at time of collection, and 15 lanes of 10x Genomics transcriptomics performed without sample multiplexing. UMAP projection and cell-type clustering of SVZ single-cell transcriptomes in the exercise cohort. Each dot represents the transcriptome of an individual cell. Colored by age and intervention (exercise) or by cell type (UMAP; Extended Data Fig. 8a). b, Density plots of predicted chronological ages of oligodendrocytes by age and exercise condition. Exercise consistently rejuvenated oligodendrocyte transcriptomes regardless of age. c, Summary of exercise effects on chronological age scores across cell types and ages. Effect sizes were calculated by taking the difference in median predicted ages between conditions. Blue indicates a decrease in predicted chronological age (‘rejuvenation’). Red indicates an increase in predicted chronological age (‘detrimental impact’). d, Density plots of aNSC-NPC predicted biological ages. Exercise rejuvenated aNSC-NPC transcriptomes of both young and old mice. e, Summary of exercise effects on biological age scores across cell types and ages. Effect sizes were calculated by taking the difference in median predicted ages between conditions. Blue indicates a decrease in predicted biological age (‘rejuvenation’). Red indicates an increase in predicted chronological age (‘detrimental impact’). For statistical analysis at the mouse level, see Extended Data Fig. 7b.