Researchers have concluded that moderate intensity exercise, including brisk walking, has the most profound positive impact on memory performance.
Results show that individuals don’t necessarily require strenuous exercise for noticeable long-term memory improvements; moderate exercise could have greater positive results.
Research of this kind could provide essential strategies to protect memory in later age and treat individuals suffering from memory deficiencies. Exercise guidelines designed to enhance memory could give students writing exams an extra edge while aiding individuals in daily tasks like remembering shopping list items.
Researchers found that different intensities and forms of rest could directly impact an individual’s recognition memory test performance.
This study suggests it isn’t necessary to overstrain in order to achieve noticeable cognitive improvements. Establishing clear guidelines to boost memory through moderate intensity exercises like walking may not only assist memory-deficient individuals but could also contribute to society initiatives like workplace training or school programs.
Walking Improves Brain Connectivity and Memory in Older Individuals
Another study demonstrated that walking strengthened three network connections linked with Alzheimer’s disease, adding yet more proof that exercise can enhance mental wellbeing.
This research focused on recollection abilities of older individuals with both normal brain function and mild cognitive impairment – an impairment which affects mental abilities such as judgment, reasoning and memory – who had suffered an involuntary cognitive loss due to dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
This research investigates brain networks associated with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s, and shows deterioration over time in individuals suffering from these disorders. Individuals become disconnected, losing the ability to remember things or think clearly; however, exercise such as walking may strengthen these connections.
This research builds upon previous work which showed how walking could increase brain function and lower cerebral blood flow among older individuals who had mild cognitive impairment.
33 individuals between the ages of 71 and 85 were studied while walking on a treadmill four days every week for 12 weeks, during which they read out loud a short story which they then repeated out loud as accurately as possible before and after exercise routine.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed on all individuals to allow us to assess communication changes among and between their three brain networks that control cognitive function:
The default mode network, linked to the hippocampus – one of the brain areas most frequently affected by Alzheimer’s – and activated when individuals aren’t engaged in specific tasks – such as daydreaming about their grocery list – can also be where Alzheimer’s disease and amyloid plaques manifest themselves during tests.
The frontoparietal network engages memory and regulates decision-making when an individual is undertaking a task, while the salience network serves to switch networks for optimal performance, monitoring external stimuli to determine which need our focus and attention.
After 12 weeks of walking, significant improvements were seen in individuals’ story recall capabilities.
Exercise was found to increase and synchronize brain activity, providing evidence of its ability to enhance adaption and change within the brain. These results offer hope that exercise such as walking can serve as an effective method for preventing or stabilizing individuals with mild cognitive impairment and even postpone their progression to Alzheimer’s related dementia in the long term.
Stronger activity was observed within both the default mode network and salience network, as well as their connections.
Walking may help stop brain shrinkage in older adults
According to another study, older individuals who regularly engage in walking could have larger brains than inactive counterparts – the exercise effects were equivalent to four less years of brain aging.
Researchers used MRI scans to measure brains of individuals ranging in activity levels from inactive to highly active. The scans confirmed that less active people had smaller brain volumes.
Other studies have demonstrated that physical activity may help lower the risk of cognitive decline and dementia due to age. One such research paper utilized brain scans for measuring individuals’ brain volumes; they discovered those participating at higher physical activity levels experienced four years less brain aging compared to individuals at lower physical activity levels.
The study involved 1,557 dementia-free individuals aged 75 on average who did not possess dementia, 296 of whom had mild cognitive impairment, and 28% carrying the APOE gene linked with higher Alzheimer’s risk.
Memory and thinking tests, physical exams and interviews were administered to participants who were asked about their daily tasks as well as any physical activities they engaged in, with energy and time allocated per individual being calculated accordingly.
Individuals were divided into three groups, as follows: inactive; somewhat active individuals who completed approximately 2.5 hours of low-intensity physical activity per week, 1 1/2 hours of moderate physical activity or one hour of high-intensity physical activity per week; and finally the most active individuals, who engaged in 7 hours of low-intensity physical activity weekly, 4 hours of moderate physical activity or two hours of high intensity activity per week.
After reviewing all the individuals’ MRI brain scans, it was found that active individuals had larger total brain volumes compared to inactive ones.
Adjusted for factors including APOE gene status, gender, age, education level and ethnicity/race; average brain sizes among inactive individuals ranged between 871 cubic cm and 883 cubic cm – representing 1.4% or approximately 4 years of brain aging respectively. Results remained similar after individuals with mild cognitive impairment were excluded.
These results further support evidence suggesting that participating in more physical activity is associated with greater brain volume, as well as building on evidence suggesting staying active throughout life could help protect against loss of brain volume.
Study limitations included individuals’ ability to recall when and for how long they engaged in physical activity, making the data inexact; due to this limitation, this research doesn’t prove whether exercise prevents brain shrinkage – only showing a correlation.
