En quoi la pratique d'exercice améliore-t-elle notre mémoire ? (texte en anglais)

The article “How Exercise Can Jog the Memory” published in May 2012 from the New York Times deals with a new experiment leaded by Dr. David Bucci, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology and brain science at Dartmouth College in Hanover, in collaboration with neuroscientists. Psychologists and neuroscientists are currently working together to improve the well-being of their patients. The evolution of the growing knowledge of genetics helps them to target their researches.

Previous researches showed that practicing exercise had a strong influence on the brain, especially on the mood and cognitive processes. Dr. Bucci argues that the effects of exercise are somewhat more nuanced.

He drove his experiment in his laboratory with 54 participants aged between 18 to 36 and who not often exercised. The first part of the experiment consists in fulfill several questionnaires measuring their health, mood and anxiety. Then they are submitted to a genetic test which determines their level of BDNF (brain-derived neurotropic factor). The scientists seek to establish whether this protein is actually involved in the positive effects on thinking. Finally the subjects are confronted to a memory test. This activity is focused on the perirhinal cortex, which is a specific part of the brain enabling the recognition of objects.

In the second part, the volunteers are divided in two equal groups: the first group (G1) will practice supervised exercise four times a week during four weeks and the second group (G2) will be a control group and will not work out.

After one month, they have to re-take the different tests but before they are submitted to some exercise. Each group is divided in two groups, one half (G1a & G2a) has to practice that day but the other half (G1b & G2b) not.

The results show that G1 obtains clearly better results for the memory test than G2. Moreover, in the first group, the subjects who have practiced exercise before testing (G1a) are better than the others (G1b) and report less anxiety. However, in the sedentary group (G2), the volunteers who have practiced earlier (G2a) tend to report more anxiety than those who have not practiced (G2b), they’re also more nervous than for the first visit.

Dr. Bucci explains that the link between physical activity and memory is more complex than we can think. Even if in most of the case, practicing regular exercise improves memory.

Biblio :

Berchtold, N. C., Castello, N., & Cotman, C. W. (2010). Exercise and time-dependent benefits to learning and memory. Neuroscience 167, 588–597.

Lambourne, K., & Tomporowski, P. (2010). The effect of exercise-induced arousal on cognitive task performance: A meta-regression analysis. Brainresearch, 1341, 1 2 – 2 4.

Colcombe, S. J., Kramer, A. F. (2003). Fitness effects on the cognitive function of older adults: a meta-analytic study. Psychol. Sci. 14, 125–130.

Hillman, C .H., Castelli, D. M., Buck, S. M. (2005). Aerobic fitness and neurocognitive function in healthy preadolescent children. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 37, 1967–1974

van Praag H, Kempermann G, Gage FH. 1999b. Running increases cell proliferation and neurogenesis

...