Study Finds You Can Grow Brain Cells Through Exercise

phantomfive writes: Researchers have discovered that aerobic exercise may increase neurogenesis. Based on the results, rats that were put on a treadmill grew more brain cells than rats that didn't. Resistance training seemed to have no effect. This is significant, because the neuron reserve of the hippocampus can be increased, thus preconditions for learning for humans could be improved simply through aerobic exercise.

Comments

Nerve connections for muscles

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

Brain cells and associated nerve connections are necessary to operate muscles. If you exercise more, or perhaps even hone a skill associated with exercise (playing basketball or tennis perhaps), then you would also expect the brain to grow connections associated with these activities.

So yes, the brain grows. Does it make a person smarter? Not necessarily, it makes a person more able to move that muscle with finer control.

Also, this seems to be a repeat of the same study in the past, though its first occurrence on /.?:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/study-people-who-exercise-have-larger-brains-later-in-life/264017/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2013/10/13/how-exercise-makes-your-brain-grow/#18d2c88248c1

Re:Nerve connections for muscles

[EvilAlphonso]

Resistance training leads to change in the nervous system, but possibly not in the brain. Relevant research

Re:Nerve connections for muscles

[bluefoxlucid]

In my research of nootropics, I came across Noopept.

Noopept is considered one of the most powerful nootropics, a thousand times stronger than Piracetam. Among other things, Noopept increases BNF and BDNF in the brain. These chemicals power neurogenesis, encouraging the formation of new brain cells and greatly increasing neuroplasticity.

What does "greatly increasing" mean?

Scientists test rats with many apparatuses. Most of these are repetitive tools, like a pool of water with a few small, hidden platforms (you drop the rat in to drown, and it panics and seeks out the platform; then you repeat the trial, leaving or moving the platforms, reorienting the device, or whatnot, to see if the rat can recognize environment cues or apply an efficient search algorithm). One of the most useful tools is a simple T maze, in which corridors abruptly meet a wall with a choice of left or right alternate path.

Rats navigating the T maze eventually find food at the end. In repeated trials, rats learn the topology of the maze, eventually running to the end of the T maze by the most direct path. This essentially tests rat memory.

Rats run on a wheel for 10 minutes before and after running a T maze *consistently* learn the maze in half as many trials as a control group of rats kept lazy in cage.

The source of this increase in learning speed? An increase in BNF and BDNF in the brain.

Bicycling, running, jumping jacks, whatnot. These things will exercise you. The exercise temporarily increases BNF and BDNF levels measurable in human blood serum. Like the rats, the humans become significantly more intelligent.

This study doesn't surprise me. I already knew this shit.

Re:Nerve connections for muscles

[gymell]

Resistance training leads to change in the nervous system, but possibly not in the brain. Relevant research

The studies you mention are from 1988 and 2006, respectively. A more recent study from 2015 concludes otherwise:

This study provides the first evidence for strength training-related changes in white matter and putamen in the healthy adult brain.

Re:By that logic, the Japanese...

[ITRambo]

Japan has the highest average life expectancy on the planet at 84 years. The US is 79 years. Exercise has more than one benefit.