A study finds that short bouts of mild exercise are associated with increased functional connectivity in the brain's hippocampus and improvements in memory. Previous studies have found links between hippocampal neural activity in animals and moderate and intense exercise, but the threshold exercise level for hippocampal effects remains unknown. Hideaki Soya, Michael Yassa, and colleagues conducted a study with 36 healthy volunteers, around 20 years of age, that involved a 10-minute period of light exercise on a recumbent cycle ergometer and a no-exercise control condition, each followed by a memory discrimination task. Sixteen of the volunteers also underwent MRI scans following exercise to assess hippocampal connectivity. The authors found that exercise was tied to increased connectivity between the hippocampal dentate gyrus, which is associated with detailed memory processing, and cortical brain regions, compared with the no-exercise condition. Additionally, the amount of improvement in participants' performance on the memory task following exercise was predicted by the magnitude of increased hippocampal connectivity observed in the MRI scans. According to the authors, the results suggest evidence of rapid brain plasticity resulting from mild exercise at a level within the capability of individuals vulnerable to memory loss and cognitive decline.
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Article #18-05668: "Rapid stimulation of human dentate gyrus function with acute mild exercise," by Kazuya Suwabe et al.
MEDIA CONTACTS: Hideaki Soya, University of Tsukuba Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, JAPAN; e-mail: soya.hideaki.gt@u.tsukuba.ac.jp; Michael Yassa, University of California, Irvine, CA; e-mail: myassa@uci.edu
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences