More Support for the Connection Between Exercise and Cognition
We recently wrote about a study that suggested exercise may improve cognition function in depression. In today’s New York Times, an article suggests that in mice, exercise expanded the brain’s capacity to store energy, a process known as supercompensation.
While a brain with more fuel reserves is potentially a brain that can sustain and direct movement longer, it also “may be a key mechanism underlying exercise-enhanced cognitive function,” says Hideaki Soya, a professor of exercise biochemistry at the University of Tsukuba and senior author of the studies, since supercompensation occurs most strikingly in the parts of the brain that allow us better to think and to remember. As a result, Dr. Soya says, “it is tempting to suggest that increased storage and utility of brain glycogen in the cortex and hippocampus might be involved in the development” of a better, sharper brain.
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