Memory and cognition don’t have to fade as we age. There are ways to maintain and improve our cognitive health. Many people try to keep their brain activity through training games. But, instead of games, simply training may be better.
A new study has found that just 20 minutes of moderate cycling increases activity in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory and learning. The increased activity may aid memory consolidation, leading to better information storage and brain processing. The harder someone cycled, the stronger the brain activity was, suggesting exercise intensity may influence the brain’s memory-related response.
Animal studies have seen “ripples” of brain activity linked to memory in rodents. But this was the first study to see those same ripples in the human brain. It suggests that exercises make processing and storing information easier for the brain.
The study used electrodes directly implanted in the brain to study neural signals. The technique is usually used for studying epilepsy.
“We’ve known for years that physical exercise is often good for cognitive functions like memory, and this benefit is associated with changes in brain health, largely from behavioral studies and noninvasive brain imaging,” said senior author Michelle Voss, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Univ. of Iowa. “By directly recording brain activity, our study shows, for the first time in humans, that even a single bout of exercise can rapidly alter the neural rhythms and brain networks involved in memory and cognitive function.”
The study used 14 participants who had the electrodes implanted as part of their epilepsy treatment. The study didn’t do something invasive without a good reason; the people were epileptic, and also took part in this research. They cycled at what they considered to be a comfortable speed for 20 minutes. The team measured their brain activity before and after they worked out. After cycling, there were significant increases in ripples from the hippocampus.
“These electrodes can record electrical signals produced by groups of neurons which are active together. This allows us to detect brief events of coordinated neural activity such as ripples, which are thought to play an important role in memory,” said co-lead author Dr. Juan Ramirez-Villegas of the Neuroscience Institute Alicante of the Spanish Research Council. “Because these recordings capture the brain’s electrical activity directly, they provide a level of detail that brain scans cannot. They allow us to observe the rapid dynamics of neural circuits in real time, giving us a much clearer window into how the brain processes information.”
Having a clearer idea of the brain in real-time is useful to help us understand more about health. While we cannot draw large conclusions from 14 participants, we can take a high-level view of this study and say that exercise appears to aid cognition. While we may all enjoy brain games on our phones, putting aside your phone and getting moving may be more beneficial for your memory!
