Exercise Changes Brain
HD Lighthouse Contributing Editor's Comment: Exercise is essential for preserving brain function for everyone. For some the loss of 'executive function' is the first symptom of HD. Here is another way exercise fights HD. Executive function is strongly preserved by exercise.
Older women (30+) seem to benefit the most from exercise. This may be because more women than men practice hormone replacement. Women that take replacement estrogen tend to exercise more. Some older men enjoy workouts that are boosted by testosterone.
Exercise Brain Benefits Confirmed for Humans
"The findings provide the first empirical confirmation of the relationship between cardiovascular fitness and neural degeneration as predicted in various academic studies on aging and cognition in both animal and human populations." Arthur Kramer, Ph.D., professor in the UIUC Department of Psychology, the Campus Neuroscience Program, and the Institute of Aviation; and a full-time faculty member in the Beckman Institute Human Perception and Performance Group. His fields of professional interest are perceptual organization and visual attention, acquisition and utilization of perceptual and cognitive skills, cognition and aging, and cognitive neuroscience.
Study is first to confirm link between exercise and changes in brain
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Three key areas of the brain adversely affected by aging show the greatest benefit when a person stays physically fit. The proof, scientists say, is visible in the brain scans of 55 volunteers over age 55. The idea that fitness improves cognition in the aging is not new. Animal studies have found that aerobic exercise boosts cellular and molecular components of the brain, and exercise has improved problem-solving and other cognitive abilities in older people. A new study in the February issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, however, is the first to show -- using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging -- anatomical differences in gray and white matter between physically fit and less fit aging humans.
Gray matter consists of thin layers of tissue of cell bodies such as neurons and support cells that are critically involved in learning and memory. White matter is the myelin sheath containing the nerve fibers that transmit signals throughout the brain.
"As people age, especially after age 30, these tissues shrink in a pattern closely matched by declines in cognitive performance." Kramer said. "We found differences in three areas of the brain, the frontal, temporal and parietal cortexes. There were very distinct differences particularly in two types of tissue, the gray matter and white matter. Nobody has reported this before."
[...]
"Interestingly, we found that fitness per se didn't have any influence on brain density," said Kramer, a professor of psychology and member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois. "It is fitness as it interacts with age that has the positive effects. Older adults show a real decline in brain density in white and gray areas, but fitness actually slows that decline."
[...]
"This, to our knowledge, is the first human data providing a potential anatomical account of the cognitive effects that we and others have found over the years," Kramer said. "Our data also suggest that more research is clearly needed to actually do a thorough examination of brain structure and functioning, and the impact of interventions such as fitness and cognitive training."
In 1999, Kramer and colleagues reported in the journal Nature that previously sedentary people over age 60 who walked rapidly for 45 minutes three days a week can significantly improve mental-processing abilities that decline with age, and particularly tasks that rely heavily on the frontal lobes of the brain.
For their meta-analysis paper, researchers reviewed 18 intervention studies done between 1966 and 2001 and involving hundreds of participants ages 55 and older. Fitness training was found to show "robust but selective benefits for cognition, with the largest fitness-induced benefits occurring for executive-control processes."
[...]
Other main conclusions from the meta-analysis: Exercise programs involving both aerobic exercise and strength training produced better results on cognitive abilities than either one alone.
Older adults benefit more than younger adults do, possibly, Kramer said, because older adults have more to gain as age-related declines become more prevalent.
More than 30 minutes of exercise per session produce the greatest benefit, a finding consistent with many existing guidelines for adults. The studies were funded by the National Institute on Aging (National Institutes of Health) and the New York-based Institute for the Study of Aging.
HD Lighthouse Contributing Editor's Comment: Exercise is essential for preserving brain function for everyone. For some the loss of 'executive function' is the first symptom of HD. Here is another way exercise fights HD. Executive function is strongly preserved by exercise.
Older women (30+) seem to benefit the most from exercise. This may be because more women than men practice hormone replacement. Women that take replacement estrogen tend to exercise more. Some older men enjoy workouts that are boosted by testosterone.
Exercise Brain Benefits Confirmed for Humans
"The findings provide the first empirical confirmation of the relationship between cardiovascular fitness and neural degeneration as predicted in various academic studies on aging and cognition in both animal and human populations." Arthur Kramer, Ph.D., professor in the UIUC Department of Psychology, the Campus Neuroscience Program, and the Institute of Aviation; and a full-time faculty member in the Beckman Institute Human Perception and Performance Group. His fields of professional interest are perceptual organization and visual attention, acquisition and utilization of perceptual and cognitive skills, cognition and aging, and cognitive neuroscience.
Study is first to confirm link between exercise and changes in brain
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Three key areas of the brain adversely affected by aging show the greatest benefit when a person stays physically fit. The proof, scientists say, is visible in the brain scans of 55 volunteers over age 55. The idea that fitness improves cognition in the aging is not new. Animal studies have found that aerobic exercise boosts cellular and molecular components of the brain, and exercise has improved problem-solving and other cognitive abilities in older people. A new study in the February issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, however, is the first to show -- using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging -- anatomical differences in gray and white matter between physically fit and less fit aging humans.
Gray matter consists of thin layers of tissue of cell bodies such as neurons and support cells that are critically involved in learning and memory. White matter is the myelin sheath containing the nerve fibers that transmit signals throughout the brain.
"As people age, especially after age 30, these tissues shrink in a pattern closely matched by declines in cognitive performance." Kramer said. "We found differences in three areas of the brain, the frontal, temporal and parietal cortexes. There were very distinct differences particularly in two types of tissue, the gray matter and white matter. Nobody has reported this before."
[...]
"Interestingly, we found that fitness per se didn't have any influence on brain density," said Kramer, a professor of psychology and member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois. "It is fitness as it interacts with age that has the positive effects. Older adults show a real decline in brain density in white and gray areas, but fitness actually slows that decline."
[...]
"This, to our knowledge, is the first human data providing a potential anatomical account of the cognitive effects that we and others have found over the years," Kramer said. "Our data also suggest that more research is clearly needed to actually do a thorough examination of brain structure and functioning, and the impact of interventions such as fitness and cognitive training."
In 1999, Kramer and colleagues reported in the journal Nature that previously sedentary people over age 60 who walked rapidly for 45 minutes three days a week can significantly improve mental-processing abilities that decline with age, and particularly tasks that rely heavily on the frontal lobes of the brain.
For their meta-analysis paper, researchers reviewed 18 intervention studies done between 1966 and 2001 and involving hundreds of participants ages 55 and older. Fitness training was found to show "robust but selective benefits for cognition, with the largest fitness-induced benefits occurring for executive-control processes."
[...]
Other main conclusions from the meta-analysis: Exercise programs involving both aerobic exercise and strength training produced better results on cognitive abilities than either one alone.
Older adults benefit more than younger adults do, possibly, Kramer said, because older adults have more to gain as age-related declines become more prevalent.
More than 30 minutes of exercise per session produce the greatest benefit, a finding consistent with many existing guidelines for adults. The studies were funded by the National Institute on Aging (National Institutes of Health) and the New York-based Institute for the Study of Aging.
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