Physical activity linked to better brain health & cognition in older adults

  • A study found that older adults remembered names better after moderately intense exercise.
  • A large, long-running study found that each hour of light physical activity per week was linked to less brain atrophy.
  • Similarly, another long-running study reported that higher levels of lifestyle physical activity were associated with less brain atrophy.

Exercise activates brain networks in older adults

A study involving healthy older adults (55-85) found that recall was better after a session of moderately intense exercise, and several crucial brain regions showed greater activation.

The recall task involved identifying famous names and non famous ones. The test occurred 30 minutes after the exercise session (using an exercise bike) and on a separate day after a period of rest.

Brain activation while correctly remembering names was significantly greater in the hippocampus, middle frontal gyrus, inferior temporal gryus, middle temporal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/uom-eam042419.php

Light, physical activity reduces brain aging

Data from the Framingham Heart Study has found that each additional hour spent in light-intensity physical activity was associated with higher brain volumes, equivalent to approximately 1.1 years less brain aging.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/buso-lpa041719.php

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/apr/19/household-chores-keep-brain-young-research-suggests

Everyday physical activities linked to more gray matter in brains of older adults

Data from 262 older adults (mean age 81) in the long-running Rush's Memory and Aging Project, found that higher levels of lifestyle physical activity (e.g., house cleaning, dog-walking, gardening, as well as exercise) are associated with more gray matter.

Participants wore an accelerometer continuously for seven to ten days, in order to accurately measure the frequency, duration and intensity of a participant's activities.

The association between physical activity and gray matter volumes remained after further controlling for age, gender, education levels, body mass index and symptoms of depression.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-02/rumc-eaa021318.php

Reference: 

Related News

A certain level of mental decline in the senior years is regarded as normal, but some fortunate few don’t suffer from any decline at all.

Previous research has found that carriers of the so-called

Obesity has been linked to cognitive decline, but a new study involving 300 post-menopausal women has found that higher BMI was associated with higher cognitive scores.

In the last five years, three studies have linked lower neighborhood socioeconomic status to lower cognitive function in older adults. Neighborhood has also been linked to self-rated health, cardiovascular disease, and mortality.

A telephone survey of around 17,000 older women (average age 74), which included questions about memory lapses plus standard cognitive tests, found that getting lost in familiar neighborhoods was highly associated with cognitive impairment that might indicate Alzheimer’s.

The very large and long-running Women's Health Initiative study surprised everyone when it produced its finding that hormone therapy generally increased rather than decreased stroke risk as well as other health problems.

Research has shown that younger adults are better decision makers than older adults — a curious result. A new study tried to capture more ‘real-world’ decision-making, by requiring participants to evaluate each result in order to strategize the next choice.

In a study involving 115 seniors (average age 81), those who participated in a six-week, 12-session memory training program significantly improved their verbal memory.

Following a 1994 study that found that errorless learning was better than trial-and-error learning for amnesic patients and older adults, errorless learning has been widely adopted in the rehabilitation industry.

In the study, 18 children (aged 7-8), 20 adolescents (13-14), and 20 young adults (20-29) were shown pictures and asked to decide whether it was a new picture or one they had seen earlier.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news