Category: Neuroscience

One of the first studies to show the benefits of running on younger brains in this way.

Runners show greater connectivity between vital parts of the brain than non-runners, research finds.

Stronger connections are seen in areas important for decision-making, planning and controlling attention.

It is one of the first studies to show the benefits of running on younger brains in this way.

Dr David Raichlen, the study’s first author, said:

“One of the things that drove this collaboration was that there has been a recent proliferation of studies, over the last 15 years, that have shown that physical activity and exercise can have a beneficial impact on the brain, but most of that work has been in older adults.

This question of what’s occurring in the brain at younger ages hasn’t really been explored in much depth, and it’s important.

Not only are we interested in what’s going on in the brains of young adults, but we know that there are things that you do across your lifespan that can impact what happens as you age, so it’s important to understand what’s happening in the brain at these younger ages.”

Researchers measured the activity in the brains of people between the ages of 18 and 25 while they were at rest.

Activities which require fine motor control — like playing a musical instrument — have previously been shown to alter brain function.

Fewer studies, though, have looked at repetitive activities like running or cycling.

Dr Raichlen said:

“These activities that people consider repetitive actually involve many complex cognitive functions — like planning and decision-making — that may have effects on the brain.”

Professor Gene Alexander, a study co-author, said:

“One of the key questions that these results raise is whether what we’re seeing in young adults — in terms of the connectivity differences — imparts some benefit later in life.

The areas of the brain where we saw more connectivity in runners are also the areas that are impacted as we age, so it really raises the question of whether being active as a young adult could be potentially beneficial and perhaps afford some resilience against the effects of aging and disease.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Raichlen et al., 2016).

‘Memories’ can be passed down through genetic code from one generation to the next.

‘Memories’ of stress can be passed down from one generation to the next by being transmitted from cell to cell, and so from mother to daughter, research finds.

It follows on from a mouse study which showed that fearful memories of a smell could be passed on from parent to child without the child ever having experienced the smell.

The process, known as ‘epigenetics’, does not mean that the genes themselves are changed by, say, stressful events; rather that there are changes in the way those genes are packaged and expressed.

The study, published in the prestigious journal, Science, provides evidence for a controversial theory, namely that ‘memories’ can be passed down through genetic code (Gaydos et al., 2014).

Many scientists are sceptical about the study of epigenetics, since the mechanism is unproven.

Nevertheless, there is some evidence that ‘memories’ of early life stress can be passed on epigenetically from parents to children, causing a higher rate of adult depression in their offspring (Caspi et al., 2003).

Addiction along with depression may also be passed on by epigenetic mechanisms (Short et al., 2016; Vassoler & Sadri-Vakili, 2014)

Epigenetic inheritance

The study takes advantage of a chemical change called ‘methylation’ that takes place in a particular protein called histone H3, which has been well-studied in epigenetics.

The same protein is found in all multicellular animals, from humans down to the worms that were used in this study.

Professor Susan Strome, a biologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz who led the study, said:

“There has been ongoing debate about whether the methylation mark can be passed on through cell divisions and across generations, and we’ve now shown that it is.”

In their research, Professor Strome and colleagues bred worms that had the gene knocked out, which creates the methylation mark.

These were then bred with normal worms.

By following the chromosomes of normal and mutated worms as they divided and grew, the researchers were able to show the critical methylation mark moving from one generation to the next.

Professor Strome concluded:

“Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance is not a solved field–it’s very much in flux.

There are dozens of potential epigenetic markers.

In studies that document parent-to-child epigenetic inheritance, it’s not clear what’s being passed on, and understanding it molecularly is very complicated.

We have a specific example of epigenetic memory that is passed on, and we can see it in the microscope.

It’s one piece of the puzzle.”

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