How walking can renovate your brain and improve memory

Exercise can refresh and renovate our brain’s white matter, potentially improving our ability to think and remember as we age, according to one. new study walking, dancing and brain health.

It shows that white matter, which connects and supports our brain cells, remodels when people become more physically active. In those who remain sedentary, on the other hand, white matter tends to fray and shrink.

The results highlight the vibrancy of our brain and how it is constantly changing – for better or for worse – in response to the way we live and move.

The idea that adult brains can be malleable is a fairly recent discovery, in scientific terms. Until the late 1990s, most researchers believed that the human brain was physically fixed and inflexible after infancy. We were born, it was believed, with most of the brain cells we would ever have and could not make any more. In this scenario, the structure and function of our brain would only decline with age.

But science has fortunately moved forward and revised this grim prediction. Complex studies the use of specialized dyes to identify newborn cells has indicated that parts of our brains create neurons until adulthood, a process known as neurogenesis. Follow-up studies then established that exercise amplifies neurogenesis. When rodents run, for example, they pump three or four times as many new brain cells as inactive animals, while in humans, starting a regular exercise program results in more brain volume. In essence, this research shows that our brains retain their plasticity throughout their lives, changing like us, including in response to the way we exercise.

However, these earlier studies of brain plasticity have generally focused on gray matter, which contains the famous little gray cells, or neurons, that enable and create thoughts and memories. Less research has focused on white matter, the wiring of the brain. Made up mostly of nerve fibers enveloped in fat called axons, white matter connects neurons and is essential for healthy brain. But it can be fragile, thin and develop small lesions with age, decay that can be a precursor to cognitive decline. Worryingly, it has also been viewed as relatively static, with little plasticity or the ability to adapt as our lives change.

Underestimate the white matter

But Agnieszka Burzynska, professor of neuroscience and human development at Colorado State University in Fort Collins in the United States, suspected the science was underestimating white matter. “It was like the ugly and neglected half-sister” of gray matter, she said, ignored and misjudged. She considered it likely that white matter possessed as much plasticity as its gray counterpart and could reshape itself, especially if people started to move.

So for the new study, which was published in NeuroImage, she and her graduate student Andrea Mendez Colmenares and other colleagues set out to transform people’s white matter. They began by bringing together nearly 250 older men and women who were sedentary but otherwise healthy. In the lab, they tested the volunteers’ current aerobic capacity and cognitive skills and also measured their white matter health and function, using a sophisticated form of brain MRI.

Then, they divided the volunteers into groups, one of which began a supervised stretching and balance training program three times a week, to serve as active control. Another started to walk together three times a week, quickly, for about 40 minutes. And the last group started dancing, meeting three times a week to learn and practice line dances and group choreography. All groups trained for six months, then returned to the lab to repeat the tests from the start of the study.

And, for many, their bodies and brains had changed, the scientists found. The walkers and dancers were in better aerobic shape, as expected. More importantly, their white matter seemed renewed. In the new scans, nerve fibers in parts of their brains looked larger and all of the tissue damage had shrunk. These desirable alterations were most prevalent among walkers, who have also performed better on memory tests now. Dancers, in general, no.

Meanwhile, members of the control group, who had not done aerobic exercise, exhibited a decline in white matter health after the six months, with increased thinning and tearing of their axons, and decreased blood pressure. cognitive scores.

The brain changes

For users, these results “are very promising,” says Dr Burzynska. They tell us that white matter remains plastic and active no matter how old we are, and a few brisk walks a week might be enough, she says, to polish tissue and slow or prevent memory decline.

Of course, the brain changes were subtle and somewhat inconsistent. Dr Burzynska and her colleagues, for example, expected dancing to produce more white matter and cognitive enhancements than walking, she says, because dancing involves more learning and practice. But walking was more powerful, suggesting that aerobic exercise, in and of itself, is the most important for white matter health. “The dancers spent part of their time in each session watching the instructors and didn’t move a lot,” says Dr Burzynska. “It probably affected their results.”

Study participants were also over 60, were inactive, and only exercised for six months. It is not yet clear whether the brains of younger, fitter people would also benefit, or whether longer-term aerobic exercise could lead to greater improvements in memory and thinking. But, for now, says Dr Burzynska, the results offer “a strong case for getting up and moving” for the good of our white matter. – New York Times

Register for one of the Get started from the Irish Times programs (it’s free!).
First, choose the eight week program that’s right for you.
– Beginner Course: A route to go from inactivity to running for 30 minutes.
– Stay on track: For those who can run a few times a week.
– 10km course: Designed for those who want to go up to the 10 km mark.
Good luck!