This article showed that brief physical exercise enhances memory. It was shown by an experiment made with people aged from 50 to 80 years old some had memory deficits, an were without. They were asked to view some images, Immediately after that a part of the group were asked to ride a stationary bicycle for 6 minutes.
One hour later, the participants were asked to recall the images previously observed. It appeared that people who performed the exercise had a better recall than those who didn’t do the activity,
The author explains these results in using biological components, it seems that Norepinephrine has increased after the exercise, and as a well known theory, Norepinephrine plays an important in memory.
The Sympathic Nervous System is aroused when someone is doing a physical activity such as sport. Strenuous exercise results in a massive activation of the sympathetic nervous system. This increase in catecholamine production plays a major in mediating the cardiovascular and metabolic responses to exercise… The activation of the SNS by exercise can be monitored by measuring the increase in plasma norepinephrine (NE)
(Greiwe; Hickner; Shah, Cryer, Holloszky 2011)
When the SNS is aroused Norepinephrine become activatd and increase in number.
Norepinephrine (NE) is a chemical hormones located in adrenal gland, it controls some metabolic proscess within the body. For example, it permit the release of O2 in muscles, or blood vessel dilation and constriction ad
The Essay on Exercise Promotes Healthy Lifestyle
A good diet and sufficient rest are important to sustain a healthy lifestyle but are not the only things to consider. When performed properly, exercising provides countless benefits that can further improve your quality of life. Regular exercise is an essential part of efficient weight loss and weight management. Exercising can also help thwart several diseases and improve a person’s overall well ...
These processes need to be processed when SNS is being aroused.
After doing sports the body needs to be restores to its original funtionning level to remain healthy. Norepinephrine work to return the muscles to a resting states, cal breathing, decrease heart rate and increase action of PNS by constricting blood vessels. It makes the body return to a state of homeostasis.
we first see the relation between doing physical exercise and the increase of Norepinephrine in the brain. Now we are going to talk about the relation between increase of norepinephrine and the enhancement of memory.
Some research support the fact that NE induced Brain Derived Neurotropic Factors (BDNF) via G protein. (Chen et all.)
A lot of studies have demonstrated that BDNF play an important role in enhancing cognitive functions, such as memory. Indeed BDNF support the survival and growth of glutamatergic neurons. These neurons use the neurotransmitter gluatamate which is important for learning and memory.
Exercise-driven increases in the level of hippocampal BDNF are controlled by neuronal activity, neurotransmitters and interactions with peripheral factors that include estrogen, corticosterone and possibly IGF-1. The peripheral influence illustrates how exercise can relate overall body status to brain function. Exercise recruits use-dependent plasticity mechanisms that prepare the brain to encode meaningful information from the environment and, at the same time, activates mechanisms that protect the brain from damage (Fig. 5).
By inducing BDNF and other molecules, exercise strengthens neuronal structure and facilitates synaptic transmission, thus, priming activated cells for encoding. The clinical literature has recognized for years that exercise affects overall health and brain function. Scientific studies are now strengthening the premise that exercise can benefit brain function and are encouraging additional clinical research in this area
The Essay on How the Human Brain Stores and Retrieves Memory
Memory is the ability to encode, store and recall information. The three main processes involved in human memory are therefore encoding, storage and recall (retrieval). Additionally, the process of memory consolidation (which can be considered to be either part of the encoding process or the storage process) is treated here as a separate process in its own right. Encoding is a biological event ...
(Carl W. Cotman and Nicole C. Berchtold)
This study show that physical exercise by itself can improve the cognitive functions of old people either they have cognitive deficit or not. Nowadays people live longer and longer, it is important to find healthy way to remedy to the cognitive impairments to which they become subject when attaining a certain age. Besides I found particularly interesting the fact that in the experiment made, no drugs were used. It is only the effect of exercise that improved memory. I think more research should be done on how the human body works, and maybe we will be able to treat disease without exterior substance, without drugs. I think the best to treat people would be to make them do some type of exercise with their mind and or body. It is the kind of research I would like to do. Besides nowadays, more and more medicine are shown to be dangerous, and have side effects.
Medicines could be a help to the healing, but we should be capable to cure ourselves by changing some way of life, or by doing some kind of exercise.