Cognitive Labs

One of the studies presented at the 2008 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Chicago shows that subjects with early Alzheimer's disease who exercised frequently saw less deterioration in the areas of the brain that control memory.

MRI scans show that exercise positively affected the hippocampus region of patients' brains, an area that is important for both memory and balance. In Alzheimer's, the hippocampus is one of the first parts of the brain to suffer damage. Exercise and physical fitness have been shown to slow age-related brain cell death in healthy older adults, and earlier this month a preliminary study was published showing that exercise may help slow brain shrinkage in people with early Alzheimer's disease.
Now, researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., have used MRI and other imaging tools to analyze how exercise affects the brains of those with early Alzheimer's.

The research found that patients with early Alzheimer's had a "significant relationship" between the size of key brain areas associated with memory and fitness, unlike healthy older adults. Those patients with better fitness ratings had less brain tissue atrophy and those with worse fitness had more brain damage.

"This is the first study to get an inside look into specifically where these changes occur in the brain. We're able to locate the changes associated with fitness to the actual memory region, the hippocampus, which is a key area for Alzheimer's-related atrophy," said Robyn A. Honea, Ph.D., a lead investigator on the study. "This suggests that maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness may positively modify Alzheimer's-related brain atrophy."

Labels: 2008, alzheimers, conference, hippocampus, honea, kansas, mri

Hippocampus Impacted by Repeat Use, More Grey Matter...

According to the Independent, when scientists compared the brains of taxi drivers with those of other drivers, they found the cabbies had more grey matter in the area of the brain associated with memory.

They believe that this part of the brain, the mid-posterior hippocampus, is where black-cab drivers store a mental map of London, including up to 25,000 street names and the location of all the major tourist attractions.

The research is the first to show that the brains of adults can grow in response to specialist use. It has been known that areas of children's brains can grow when they learn music or a language.

The scientists warn that increasingly widespread use of satellite navigation - expected to be one of the biggest-selling gifts this Christmas - could change all that.

"GPS [Global Positioning System] may have a big effect," says Dr Eleanor Maguire, who led the research at University College London.

"We very much hope they don't start using it. We believe this area of the brain increased in grey matter volume because of the huge amount or data they have to memorise.If they all start using GPS, that knowledge base will be less and possibly effect the brain changes we are seeing."

n the study, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL's Institute of Neurology carried out scans on the brains of 35 cabbies and bus drivers, all men. Various psychological tests were also carried out.

Using bus drivers meant that any brain differences found could not be explained by driving stress, or dealing with passengers and traffic in London. The one big difference between the two is that bus drivers stick to routes, while cabbies have to learn the layout of streets and the locations of thousands of places of interest to get an operating licence.

The results of the scans show that the mid-posterior hippocampus of all the cabbies was bigger and that they had more grey matter than the bus drivers.

Dr Maguire said: "We are now looking at the brains of taxi-drivers before they start training, and at those of retired cabbies to see whether that area of the brain gets smaller when it is not used."

Labels: brain, cab, grey_matter, hippocampus