Just 20 minutes of physical activity may benefit your memory

 

• A study suggests that 20 minutes of moderate cycling increases brain activity in the hippocampus, a region critical for learning and memory.
• This increased hippocampal activity may support memory consolidation, potentially helping the brain process and store information.
• Higher exercise intensity was associated with stronger brain activity, suggesting that exercise levels may influence the magnitude of the brain’s memory-related response.

Many different strategies and techniques exist to help maintain or improve a person’s memory. Often, many of these methods emphasize keeping the brain active.

These brain-training activities often focus on stimulating specific regions of the brain involved in memory, such as the hippocampus. In particular, the hippocampus plays an important role in memory consolidation, the process by which newly formed memories are strengthened into long-term memories.

Previously, neuroscientists have documented “ripples” of brain activity relevant to memory in mice and rats. However, they had been unable to confirm this link in humans.

Now, a new study, published in Brain Communications, suggests that brief sessions of physical exercise could alter human brain activity, triggering waves of ‘ripples’ that may support the brain to process and store information more effectively.

These findings provide some of the first direct evidence explaining how exercise benefits cognition in humans at the neural level.

Exercise sparks ‘memory ripples’ in the brain

Researchers have long known that physical activity is associated with improvements in memory and other cognitive functions. However, due to difficulties recording human brain activity, much of the previous evidence comes from behavioral studies or indirect imaging methods.

However, in this study, researchers directly recorded brain activity using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG). Typically used for monitoring severe epilepsy, this technique involves implanting electrodes in the brain to observe neural signals with high precision.

Co-lead author Juan Ramirez-Villegas, PhD, a tenure-track research scientist at the Neuroscience Institute Alicante of the Spanish Research Council and the Miguel Hernández University of Elche spoke to Medical News Today about the advantages of this technique.

“These electrodes can record electrical signals produced by groups of neurons which are active together. This allows us to detect brief events of coordinated neural activity such as ripples, which are thought to play an important role in memory,” said Ramirez-Villegas.

“Because these recordings capture the brain’s electrical activity directly, they provide a level of detail that brain scans cannot. They allow us to observe the rapid dynamics of neural circuits in real time, giving us a much clearer window into how the brain processes information,” he added.

What the study involved

The team studied 14 participants aged 17 to 50 years who had electrodes implanted as part of epilepsy treatment. The 14 individuals completed a 20-minute session on a stationary bike, cycling at a comfortable pace.

The researchers chose this protocol as it was short and feasible to implement in a clinical setting. The team then measured brain activity both before and after the exercise session.

After exercising, the research team observed a significant increase in high-frequency ripple activity originating in the hippocampus. These ripples then spread toward other brain regions involved in processing and recalling information.

“Ripples are very brief bursts of highly synchronized electrical activity in the brain’s memory center, the hippocampus,” Ramirez-Villegas explained to us.

“In animals, they are known to play a key role in stabilizing memories after an experience. You can think of them as moments when the brain rapidly ‘reviews’ information, helping convert recent experiences into lasting memories,” he illustrated.

Source: Medical News Today