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- One finding is that engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions. Exercise can also boost memory and thinking indirectly by improving mood and sleep, and by reducing stress and anxiety.
www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-can-boost-your-memory-and-thinking-skills
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Aug 26, 2024 · One finding is that engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions. Exercise can also boost memory and thinking indirectly by improving mood and sleep, and by reducing stress and anxiety.
Mar 1, 2024 · A 2023 study found that people who engaged in moderate or vigorous exercise an average of four days a week had more brain mass in regions associated with cognitive skills like memory and learning, compared with people who did not exercise.
- hhp_info@health.harvard.edu
Sep 27, 2022 · Exercising can increase the thickness of your cerebral cortex and improve the integrity of your white matter (the nerve fibers that connect areas of the brain’s nerve-cell-rich gray matter).
Apr 9, 2014 · In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning.
- hhp_info@health.harvard.edu
- Overview
- How muscles may ‘speak’ to the brain
- Exercise and dementia risk
- Findings yet to be confirmed in people
- What might be the future applications?
•Researchers investigated the cellular mechanisms behind how exercise improves cognition.
•They found that contracting muscle cells release chemical signals that increase neuronal growth and firing.
•They also found that support cells known as astrocytes prevent neurons exposed to chemical signals from muscle cells from excessive electrical signaling.
•Further studies are needed to see whether these findings apply to humans.
Exercise is key for maintaining physical and mental health. Studies show that it positively affects health even if started later in life.
Some suggest that exercise improves cognition by inducing long-term changes in the hippocampus, such as increased volume and an increased rate of neuronal formation. How exactly exercise changes the hippocampus, however, remains unknown.
For the study, the researchers isolated small muscle precursor-cell samples from mice and grew them in Petri dishes. Once they matured, they began to contract and release chemical signals into the cell culture.
The team then added the chemicals that had contained the mature muscle cell culture to another dish containing hippocampal neurons and astrocytes.
They used immunofluorescence and calcium imaging to track cell growth, as well as multi-electrode arrays to record neuronal activity.
In the end, they found that exposure to chemical signals from the muscle cells increased quantities of hippocampal neurons and astrocytes by 1.4 and 4.4 times.
The addition of muscle cell cultures also accelerated the creation of mature hippocampal neuronal networks – cells that fire synchronously.
The researchers next sought to explore how astrocytes affect the mixture. To do so, they observed the effects of removing astrocytes from cell cultures containing hippocampal cells and mature muscle cells.
MNT asked Dr. Rong Zhang, a neurologist at UT Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute, not involved in the study, how exercise may reduce dementia risk.
He noted that whether this is the case still needs to be tested in large clinical trials and that further research should investigate underlying molecular mechanisms as well.
Meanwhile, Dr. Bennett noted that prior research shows that exercise reduces dementia risk by:
•increasing blood flow to the brain
•reducing inflammation
•reducing stress
“This was an in vitro study in rodents, using cell culture. It will take further study to see if these findings are applicable in people,” cautioned Dr. Zhang, commenting on the study.
Dr. Lauren Bennett, director of neuropsychology at the Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, not involved in the study, added that the research “was only conducted for a short period of time, and it is not clear whether the findings would be the same over a longer period of time.”
Nevertheless, “the outcomes of this study provide further evidence of the importance of exercise, at any point in life, in supporting hippocampal plasticity to combat hippocampal atrophy, which is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease,” noted Dr. Bennett.
“Down the road, studies like this could play a pivotal role in helping us optimize exercise regimens to support cognitive health,” she explained.
Dr de Souza added that the findings may also aid the development of new treatments for cognitive impairment.
“These findings show that in the future there is the potential to ‘reverse engineer treatments to recapitulate pro-cognitive effects of exercise in the absence of physical activity.’ What is also exciting is whether this can be used to reverse or halt the progression of cognitive decline in patients with dementia,” he said.
- Annie Lennon
Jan 25, 2024 · Does exercise help the brain? In people who exercise regularly, the lining of blood vessels remains smooth and slippery, making it harder for clots to form, finds research. Exercise also stimulates the release of a protective molecule called brain-derived neurotrophic growth factor (BDNF).
Animal and human studies have shown that exercise exerts positive effects on cognition through a variety of mechanisms, such as changes in brain volume and connectivity, cerebral perfusion, synaptic plasticity, neurogenesis, and regulation of trophic factors.
