| Exercise Boosts Brain Power
A year of modest aerobic exercise reversed normal brain shrinkage by one
to two years in older adults and improved their memory function,
according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. As people age, the hippocampus, the brain's memory
center, loses 1% to 2% of its volume annually, affecting memory and
possibly increasing the risk for dementia. A growing body of evidence
has pointed to aerobic exercise as a low-cost hedge against
neurocognitive decline. In this study, magnetic resonance imaging was
used to measure the effects of aerobic exercise on the hippocampus in
120 Americans in their late 50s to early 80s. Half the group walked
three times a week for 40 minutes, aiming for their target heart rate,
while the other half did yoga and toning exercises. The hippocampus in
walkers increased by 2% after a year and shrank by 1.4% in controls.
Both groups showed significant improvements on spatial memory tests
conducted before and after the study. This could be due to taking the
test repeated times, the researchers said. In the walking group,
however, changes in hippocampus volume were directly related to improved
memory performance, they said.
Caveat: The study found that exercise had a selective
effect on the brain, influencing the volume of the anterior hippocampus
but not the posterior. Researchers suspect aerobic exercise might have
the most effect on regions of the brain that show the largest decline in
late adulthood, such as the anterior hippocampus.
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