Physical Activity Makes Your Brain More Open to Change

Lisa Franchi December 10, 2015

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Want to enhance your brain’s ability to self-repair, as well as your memory and learning ability? Make exercise part of your regular routine. According to a new study, physical activity improves neurons’ ability to change with experience, which results to significant brain health benefits. 

The new findings, according to the researchers, come as a hopeful news for people suffering from traumatic brain injury and more. 

Their study focused on the visual cortex. They explained that the plastic potential of the cerebral cortex is greatest early in life, when the developing brain is moulded by experience. Brain plasticity is generally thought to decline with age. This decline in the brain’s flexibility over time is especially pronounced in the sensory brain, which displays far less plasticity in adults than in younger people. 

"We provide the first demonstration that moderate levels of physical activity enhance neuroplasticity in the visual cortex of adult humans," says lead investigator Claudia Lunghi of the University of Pisa in Italy. 

"By showing that moderate levels of physical activity can boost the plastic potential of the adult visual cortex, our results pave the way to the development of non-invasive therapeutic strategies exploiting the intrinsic brain plasticity in adult subjects," she adds. 

Her team examined scientific studies on the role of physical activity in brain plasticity. Those studies showed that animals performing physical activity led to elevated levels of plasticity in the visual cortex and improved recovery from amblyopia in comparison to more sedentary animals. 

To find whether the same holds true with people, researchers put 20 adults through this test twice; in one deprivation test, participants with one eye patched watched a movie while relaxing in a chair. In the other test, participants with one eye patched exercised on a stationary bike for ten-minute intervals during the movie. The results were clear: brain plasticity was enhanced by the exercise. 

They found that during the two hours of eye patching, the subject intermittently cycles, the perceptual effect of eye patching on binocular rivalry is stronger compared to a condition in which, during the two hours of patching, the subject watches a movie while sitting on a chair.

While it warrants further scientific investigation, researchers think that this effect may result from a decrease with exercise in an inhibitory neurotransmitter called GABA. As concentrations of this inhibitory nerve messenger decline, the brain becomes more responsive. 

"Our study suggests that physical activity, which is also beneficial for the general health of the patient, could be used to increase the efficiency of the treatment in adult patients," Lunghi says. "So, if you have a lazy eye, don’t be lazy yourself!" 

Her team plans to examine the effects of moderate levels of physical exercise on visual function in amblyopic adult patients and to look deeper into the underlying neural mechanisms. 

The new findings were published in the Current Biology journal. 

Source of this article: 

Lunghi and Sale: "A cycling lane for brain rewiring"