Exercise to improve your memory!

Exercise can improve your quality of life
Researchers have found a correlation between fitness and brain function in children approximately 9 to 10 years: Those who are more fit tend to have larger hippocampus and perform better on a memory test than less fit peers.

The study, which used MRI to measure the relative size of specific brain structures in 49 samples of children, published in the journal «Brain Research».

"This is the first study to date which have used MRI to examine conditions for the brain differences between children who are trained and children that are not", said psychology professor from the University of Illinois and Director of the Beckman Institute, Art Kramer, who led the study with doctoral student Laura Chaddock and professor of Kinesiology and Health Charles Hillman.

The study focused on the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain, because it is known is a location important for the ability of learning and memory. Previous studies in older adults and in animals have shown that exercise can increase the size of the hippocampus.

A larger hippocampus is associated with improvement in various cognitive functions.

"In animal studies, exercise has been shown to affect specifically the hippocampus, a significant increase in growth of new neurons and cell survival, enhances memory and learning and increases the molecules involved in brain plasticity," says Professor Chaddock.

So rather than relying on reports from second-hand physical activity levels of children, the researchers measured how effectively they used oxygen while running on a treadmill.

"This is the gold standard measure of fitness," says Chaddock.

"Physical fitness for already trained children were much more effective than the less trained and experienced in the use of oxygen," said Kramer.

When analyzed data of MRI, the researchers found that physically trained children tended to have larger hippocampal volumes - approximately 12% greater than the total size of the brain.

Also these children performed better on memory tests - showed a greater ability to remember and integrate various types of information - from less fit peers.

"Fitter children had higher performance in memory, with larger size of the hippocampus, compared to less trained and experienced," says Chaddock.

"The new findings suggest that interventions to increases in childhood physical activity can have significant effects on brain development," said Kramer.

"So we confirmed that the effect of environmental factors and socioeconomic status have an impact on brain development," said research team as a general conclusion.

So even if you inherit some "bad" genes from your parents with appropriate intervention from the environment in which you grow in your lifetime, you are able to greatly improve the quality of your life!