Washington: Regular exercise is not just good for your health but can also make you smarter, a study has found.
The study, published in the journal eLife, found that short-term bursts of exercise — the human equivalent of a weekly game of pickup basketball, or 4,000 steps — promoted an increase in synapses in the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with learning and memory.
The neuroscientists working with mice at Oregon Health & Science University in the US made the key discovery by analysing genes that were increased in single neurons activated during exercise. They measured the brain’s response to single bouts of exercise in otherwise sedentary animals that were placed for short periods on running wheels. The mice ran a few kilometers in two hours.
During the research, one particular gene — Mtss1L — stood out. This gene had been largely ignored in prior studies in the brain.The Mtss1L gene encodes a protein that causes bending of the cell membrane.
The study showed that an acute burst of exercise is enough to prime the brain for learning.
PTI