Aerobic Activity May Keep The Brain Young

[steven johnson]

Come on, you lazy bones! Get moving!

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2009) — New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine finds that aerobic activity may keep the brain young.

In the study published July 9 in the American Journal of Neuroradiology, physically active elderly people showed healthier cerebral blood vessels.

Researchers led by Elizabeth Bullitt, M.D., Van L. Weatherspoon Distinguished Professor of neurosurgery, used non-invasive magnetic resonance (MR) angiography to examine the number and shape of blood vessels in the brains of physically active elderly people, 7 men and 7 women, ages 60 to 80.

The brain’s blood vessels naturally narrow and become more tortuous with advancing age, but the study showed the cerebrovascular patterns of active patients appeared “younger” than those of relatively inactive subjects. The brains of these less active patients had increased tortuosity produced by vessel elongation and wider expansion curves.


Aerobic Activity May Keep The Brain Young