Add this to the list of reasons to get off the couch and exercise already: I was reading an article by Sue Halpern featured in TIME Magazine today about Forgetting and the Brain (while waiting for my doctor to remember my appointment time), and I was struck by the passage on brain regeneration, exercise, and memory. A team of researchers lead by Drs. Fred Gage, Scott Small, and Richard Sloan, found that after 12 weeks of exercising on a treadmill for an hour four times a week, previously inactive men and women (of ranging ages) would show substantial increases in cerebral blood volume (CBV). This finding is substantial because CBV is a proxy for nuerogenesis. These previously inactive people were producing more neurons- even when in middle age. And they were also doing better on a host of memory tests. Apparently this finding is replicated in other studies as well: psychologists in Illinois and Israel found that those who engaged in aerobic workouts did better on tests of cognition than those who just did anaerobic work outs (no heart pounding motion). On top of increasing CBV, aerobic exercise increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a “protein that stimulates the birth of new brain cells and then helps them differentiate and connect. (p.45)” In a long term demographic study in Sweden, those who exercised had significantly lower rates of dementia, including Alzheimer’s.

I won’t even get into what was mentioned about blueberries. I’ll let you read the rest of the article found on TIME’s website.