| FitTip: Exercise May Increase Brain Cells |
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| by Diet Detective Editorial Staff | |
| Wednesday, 30 October 2002 | |
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Jogging just might build up your brain, if you believe a study involving lab mice. Mice that ran on an exercise wheel whenever they wanted created more new cells in one area of the brain than did mice that pursued other activities. Can jogging affect human brain cells, too? "If you want to answer that question, you're going to have to do some experiments in humans,'' said Fred Gage, M.D., of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. Gage does report that more people in his lab have started running since they found these results in mice.Gage is senior author of the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The result was a surprise, and it's not clear how to explain it, he says. The study followed up on previous work that found mice created more new cells in the hippocampus, an area involved in learning and memory, if they spent time in a playground-like environment rather than a standard cage. The new work was aimed at pinpointing what kind of experience was responsible for the effect.
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 July 2006 ) |
Studies with lab mice show that jogging just might build your brain.
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