Gene Alexander, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at University Of Arizona, explains how exercise can improve cognitive function.
Interview conducted by Ivanhoe Broadcast News in June 2017.
If you would just outline for me the study that you’re doing on runners and improved cognitive function?
Alexander: Yes, in this study we are interested in looking at how running affects the brain. There’s been a growing body of research showing that people can benefit from exercise, especially the brain in older adults and how the brain is connected. We wanted to test the question of whether we can see differences in brain connectivity in younger adults, by investigating those who are engaged in a high level of aerobic exercise activity. We looked at groups of endurance athletes, as well as individuals who are not engaged in physical activity to see how the brain was different between them.
What have you found so far?
Alexander: The study is interesting because it shows that the endurance athletes had indications of a different brain organization than the non-athletes., Using MRI scans that assess functional connectivity, we evaluated how certain regions of the brain interact with each other. By looking at those scans we were able to tell that the endurance athletes who were engaged in a high level of aerobic physical activity had areas in the brain that were more active and more connected than the non-athletes. This suggested that there might be some differences in how their brains are wired and also may reflect differences in how they perform different cognitive abilities.
That’s something that they would take on with them for the rest of their life, develop it early and keep it?
Alexander: We don’t know, that’s a great question. We see the differences in the brains of people at younger ages with exercise and we also know that it can impact people as they age. The question is do the changes we see in young adults translate to better brain connectivity throughout life. That’s an important question that would help us understand whether the benefits of physical activity are helpful over the full adult lifespan and how much exercise is needed to see the benefits..
Is this part of the study too or just for tomorrow?
Alexander: This is future work. We have a bigger program of research; we’re really looking at how exercise not only impacts younger adults in their brain and cognitive functions, but also throughout the lifespan. Looking at how the aging brain can benefit from physical activity and particularly whether this offers some resilience against the effects of aging and even neurodegenerative disease.
That’s great, be fine when you are a kid and be fine when you’re an adult.
Alexander: Sure.
Explain what you mean by the connectivity and improved connectivity?
Alexander: The brain has different areas that are involved in different cognitive abilities like memory, language, visuospatial abilities, all abilities that we rely on every day in our daily lives. There are also areas of the brain that seem to be connected or work together when we’re just resting, not really doing anything particular, not any goal directed activity. These networks of brain regions interact with each other and we think that they reflect intrinsic connectivity in the brain. We know that people who are older have less connectivity in these networks. If you have a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s it’s also reduced significantly. Then the real question we wanted to ask is, would we see differences even in young adults who were very healthy and cognitively fine, doing well in their daily life? In this study, we did see differences just based on the fact that they were endurance athletes who were running and doing a high level of physical activity.
Why is the connectivity improved with an athlete? Is it because of blood flow or what?
Alexander: We don’t know the full answer to what the mechanism is, or what underlies why people benefit from exercise and how it impacts the brain, but we have some ideas from the research that’s been done in animal models and other kinds of studies. We think that it has to do with two major potential benefits; either it increases blood flow in the brain that allows for better function of the connections that occur between the different brain regions or it could be related to certain factors that can help the neurons to function better and to grow. There’s one called brain derived neurotrophic factor which we all have. If we exercise we can increase the amount of that factor in our bodies and potentially in our brains and that may contribute to why exercise is beneficial.
Neural factors would be like, not a hormone but some kind of chemical that your bodies releasing?
Alexander: That’s right. These are natural chemicals that occur in our bodies and we have them to different degrees and they serve a purpose for brain function. We don’t fully understand how they function completely but we know that they are increased when people are exercising and we think it has a beneficial effect.
Was this particular study a spinoff of another study or was there something else that prompted you to choose this area to focus on?
Alexander: This is a part of a larger program of research that we have been developing, looking at how exercise impacts the brain. Also, we are trying to understand why people benefit as we age with exercise. We think that there may be connections with our evolutionary history and how that works with our current daily levels of activity. Maybe our lack of being involved in physical activities may introduce some of the changes that we see as we age. We’re hoping to find ways in which we can use exercise to improve brain function and structure as we age, and provide recommendations or prescriptions for better aging.
Was the result surprising to you or just kind of confirmation to what you believe?
Alexander: We found mostly what we expected to find. What we also found, which was really interesting is that certain areas of the brain, like the frontal parts of the brain, which we think are important for problem-solving or executive functions, like being able to switch focus and multi-task were associated with those areas of the brain that we saw increased in the athletes compared to the non-athletes. That really was a nice surprise to see that it seems to be benefiting parts of the brain that are really important for these cognitive abilities. They also are areas that are impacted as we age. So it’s all connected.
END OF INTERVIEW
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Gene Alexander
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