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They recruited 26 healthy men and women aged 55 to 85, who did not have serious memory problems, and asked them to go to the exercise lab twice. There, they rested quietly or did 30 minutes of exercise bike, a training that scientists hoped could stimulate, but not exhaust.
Then the volunteers are inside a scanner center of the brain and watched the names flash on the screen of a computer. Some names were famous, such as, for example, Ringo Starr, while others were removed from the local phone book.
Famous names are an important part of semantic memory, and volunteers were asked to press a key on the screen to recognize celebrity names and a different touch when the name was unknown to them. Meanwhile, the researchers followed their brain activity as a whole, as well as in the parts involved in the processing of semantic memory.
Scientists expected that the areas needed for semantic memory work would be calmer after exercise, just like after weeks of work, says J. Carson Smith, associate professor of kinesiology and director of the Exercise for the brain health laboratory of the School of Public Health of the University of Maryland, who oversaw the new study.
But this is not what happened. Instead, the parts of the brain most involved in semantic memory were filled with much more intense activity after exercise than after rest.
At first, the researchers were surprised and intrigued by the results, says Dr. Smith. But then, they started thinking that they were observing the beginning of a training response.
"There is an analogy with what happens with the muscles," says Dr. Smith.
When he starts exercising, he points out that his muscles are contracting and burning energy. But as they become more fit, these same muscles respond more efficiently and use less energy for the same work.
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