To maintain optimal cognitive health, get moving. MC Ridding, from the University of Adelaide (Australia) report that just a single session of aerobic exercise is enough to promote brain plasticity that could lead to improved memory and coordination of motor skills. The team enrolled 9 men and women, average age 31 years, who rode exercise bikes and were monitored for changes in the brain immediately after the exercise and again 15 minutes later. While there were no changes in cortical excitability following exercise, the team did observe less short-interval intracortical inhibition at both 0 and 15 minutes post-exercise. The study authors write that that: “These findings show that a short period of exercise can transiently reduce [short-interval intracortical inhibition] … Such a change in inhibition after exercise may contribute to the development of a cortical environment that would be more optimal for plasticity and may partially explain previous findings of enhanced neuroplasticity following low-intensity exercise.” Separately, Nicolas Berryman, from the Institut universitaire de geriatrie de Montreal (Canada), and colleagues compared the effects of different training methods on the cognitive functions of people aged 62 to 84 years. Two groups were assigned a high-intensity aerobic and strength-training program, whereas the third group performed tasks that targeted gross motor activities (coordination, balance, ball games, locomotive tasks, and flexibility). While the aerobics and strength-training were the only exercises that led to physical fitness improvements after 10 weeks (in terms of body composition, VO2 max, and maximum strength), all three groups showed equivalent improvement in cognitive performance. Notably, the subjects in the third group performed activities that can easily be done at home, which lends credence to the notion that sedentary people need not go to a gym to work out. The study authors submit that: “These findings suggest that different exercise programs targeting physical fitness and/or gross motor skills may lead to equivalent improvement in cognition in healthy older adults.”
Brain Gains
Smith AE, Goldsworthy MR, Garside T, Wood FM, Ridding MC. “The influence of a single bout of aerobic exercise on short-interval intracortical excitability.” Exp Brain Res. 2014 Jun;232(6):1875-82. News source for Berryman, et al: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/uom-trt102914.php; Berryman N, Bherer L, Nadeau S, Lauzière S, Lehr L, Bobeuf F, Lussier M, Kergoat MJ, Vu TT, Bosquet L. “Multiple roads lead to Rome: combined high-intensity aerobic and strength training vs. gross motor activities leads to equivalent improvement in executive functions in a cohort of healthy older adults.” Age (Dordr). 2014 Oct;36(5):9710.
