Physical activity has already been shown to help prevent cognitive decline, but now an Argentinian study is going one step further to try to prove that it could even generate new neurons in adulthood.
Neuroscientists and technologists proved that even sedentary people improved their spatial memory after 25 minutes of exercise on a stationary bike. Physical activity is actually a pretext to demonstrate something else: that this effort can contribute to the generation of neurons. “We are based on a type of spatial memory called Department of Patterns (separation patterns), which is elaborated in the Dentate Gyrus, an area of the brain that is I am sorry the hippocampus, where spatial memories are processed. It is the only place in the brain of mammals, and therefore humans, where neurogenesis is believed to occur; generation of new neurons. So what we were trying to look for is spatial memory, which indirectly works better if there is neurogenesis,” explains neurologist and co-director of the study Fabricio Ballarini, who carries out his work at the Technological Institute of Buenos Aires and the Institute. in Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the University of Buenos Aires.
The key is Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), a protein related to the growth and health of neurons that also increases when you do physical exercise. This was already demonstrated in mice more than ten years ago, and now the experiment could be adapted to humans thanks to virtual reality, in which scientists from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and the National University of the Provincial Center of Buenos Aires (UNICEN). Spatial memory, which records information about the environment and the location of objects, deteriorates with aging and Alzheimer’s disease, so it is important to study simple ways to improve it.
“When studying humans, for ethical reasons, the molecular aspects cannot be analyzed, so we have to observe the behavior of memory,” explains Ballarini, awakened by one of the central dilemmas of neuroscience: whether neurons can be born in adulthood. The researcher explains: “The central dogma, especially in mammals, is that we are born with a pool of neurons that die and new ones are not born. To know this, a permanent camera would have to be installed to precisely detect the moment a neuron is born. Not possible. The only way to find out is indirectly. Therefore, our central hypothesis is that when people engage in physical activity, BDNF levels rise.
If this happens, the researchers believe it should be reflected in better spatial location performance, which is processed only in the dentate gyrus, where sprout neurons. “What we’re looking for is some indirect evidence that there might be neurogenesis in humans and that it’s triggered by exercise.” The ultimate goal is to show that physical activity generates new neurons,” says the neuroscientist, who is popular in the country for his popularization activity. In fact, part of the funding for this study benefited from his work as a science communicator, in addition to some technology transfer funding from UNICEN and the usual salary contribution from CONICET.
Memorial Cave
A group of 98 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 40 entered a kind of visual cave, a computer-assisted virtual environment (CAVE, in English), in which a desert landscape was projected onto the walls and floor to induce a sense of real immersion. There they had to carefully observe and try to remember the location of a series of flags. They could virtually move around using a joystick, like in a video game, and use the few mountain landmarks or some clouds. The artificial environment allowed them to maintain a stable variable environment that in a natural context could be altered by factors such as wind, sunlight, temperature or animal disturbance.
According to Dr. Cristian García Bauza, coordinator of the laboratory where the tool was developed, the projections also allowed “to wear nothing, like a helmet, to make it more like reality. After departure, the participants were randomly divided into two groups: one that exercised on a stationary bike for 25 minutes, in which there were athletes and sedentary people, and the other that sat down and watched a video of a cycling race. This was done so that we could distinguish the mental perception of doing a physical activity from the brain effects that you are actually doing. 24 hours later, according to UNICEN researcher Florencia Rodríguez, the two groups returned to the CAVE to check if they were able to find the flags they saw in the first phase on their own. As a result, all those who engaged in physical exercise, including those who had a sedentary job, were able to correctly locate them in space, while those who only watched the video of the race did not achieve this goal.
The search for alternatives to drugs is another motivation of the neuroscientific team. “What we are very interested in is finding problems that have to do with external stimulations that can help memory. From the age of 40 or 45, memory deficits begin to be observed in healthy people and even more so in the aging population. In some countries, by the end of the century, there will be huge numbers of adults with cognitive problems, both in the economically active and inactive populations,” says Ballarini. For this reason, he explains, his search is based on finding specific tools. For example, if you want to boost your memory, such as studying something, you can follow certain steps, such as being surprised, going to a specific place, taking a nap, or doing physical activity, something that is a result of understanding how the brain works. “We tested it with spatial memory, and now we’re going to try it with the memory of something that has nothing to do with spatial memory. We will guide him to the promoter of memory,” he adds.
Although this study alone is not enough to definitively conclude that physical exercise generates neurons, it represents an important step toward that goal.
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