Exercise not only helps in weight loss but in memory enhancement too: study

Regular exercise is widely known to bring a wide range of health benefits to those who consistently go at it, and for those who are still on the fence (or the couch) about it, here's another study that proves how physical exercise can benefit a person's long-term memory. EurekAlert reports that a study published in the debut issue of the new IOS Press journal Brain Plasticity has revealed how exercise can enhance the development of new brain cells in the adult brain.

Researchers from the University of Basel in Switzerland have found that exercise helps an adult's brain develop new cells via adult neurogenesis, Medical Daily reports. For the study, researchers analyzed two groups of mice, with one completely sedentary and another set of mice voluntarily ran on a wheel. The researchers then used a novel object recognition (NOR) task to find out if exercise had any effect on the mice's memory. Researchers placed two identical objects in the cages of both groups of mice, such as a black or white cone or pyramid. After 90 minutes, the item was replaced with either a cone with a pyramid or a pyramid with a cone, to see how the mice would react. A day later, researchers changed the objects again, but with an object of the same color and different shape, for example, a black cone replaced by a black pyramid or a white cone for a black pyramid.

After 90 minutes, both groups of mice were able to pick out the similar objects from the different ones, but the active mice were more capable of telling distinct and similar looking objects after 24 hours. The sedentary group of mice only distinguished distinct objects.

Researchers also took a closer look at the brains of the mice, where they found that the active mice had two times more new brain cells than the sedentary mice.

"Our research indicates that exercise-induced increase in neurogenesis improves pattern separation by supporting unique and detailed long-term representations of similar but nevertheless different memory items," lead investigator Josef Bischofberger, PhD explained. "Pattern separation is involved in many memory tasks of everyday life."

Neuroscience Graduate Program Director Division of Medical Sciences, University of Victoria Brian R. Christie, PhD also commented that "Because exercise can increase the rate of new neurons being produced, it makes it an attractive candidate for therapeutic purposes. Studies have shown that exercise can have both structural and cognitive benefits in rodent models of pathological conditions like Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and Alzheimer's disease."

Business Standard reports that a similar study was conducted among 29 young adults aged 18 to 31 and 31 older adults aged 55 to 82, in which researchers found that older adults who were more active had better memory performance.