By health-newswire.com reporters

Exercising on a daily basis may prevent the deterioration of brain cells that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a recent study. The US team found that rats that regularly exercised for three weeks had increased expression of certain genes responsible for helping the brain respond to stress and learning. Dr Carl Cotman and Dr Nicole Berchtold from the University of California, Irvine, showed that, after three weeks of running on a cage wheel, rodents had changed the expression or activity of genes in the memory centre of the brain – the hippocampus. Other studies have also shown that running can increase brain growth factor levels and improve learning ability in rats. The team will now study the interactions of hippocampal genes to improve understanding of the way exercise affects brain functioning and degeneration.

Source: Trends in Neurosciences, June 2002
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