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Just 10 minutes of exercise a day could improve your memory. Brief light exercise, such as slow walking, yoga or tai chi activates the parts of the brain responsible for memory formation and can increase its storage capacity. This is according to recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The group from University of California, US, assessed the memory ability of one group of volunteers who exercised for 10 minutes at 30% of their oxygen intake before performing a challenging memory task. The same group of volunteers then repeated the experiment but without exercising.

The researchers found that exercise boosts the brain connectivity by enhancing communication between the hippocampus, the brain region mainly associated with memory storage, and the cortical brain regions, which have a role in memory recollection.

These brain regions are also thought to be associated in the deterioration of memory with ageing, suggesting that an exercise regime could be developed and prescribed to older adults to help stave off cognitive decline.

Thinking about the neurological benefits of physical exercise we share the top recommended articles on the affect of exercise on cognition; our usual top three articles for the month; and our Hidden Jewels. Click on the images for full access to the recommendations.

F1000Prime is a literature recommendation service. The service has a peer-nominated global Faculty of more than 8,000 of the world’s leading biomedical scientists and clinicians who select those articles they think are particularly interesting and important, and write recommendations explaining their selection. From the numerical ratings awarded, we have created a unique system for quantifying the importance of individual articles.

Top 3 recommendations on exercise and memory

“There has been growing evidence of the potential benefit of exercise, particularly aerobic exercise in several attributes of memory function. While most of the experimental evidence comes from animal studies, the present paper provides some of the first direct experimental evidence in humans that aerobic exercise both improves memory function and increases anterior hippocampal volume.” – Christopher Gomez, University of Chicago Medical Center, US

“One of the main conclusions of this work is that, in contrast to studies in rodents, where the effects of physical exercise are reported in the hippocampus, in humans they are linked to upper cognitive functions such as recognition memory, maybe lacking a specific task.” – Jose Lafuente, University of the Basque Country, Spain, and Enrike Argandona, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

“This article not only confirms with scientific evidence some of the generally assumed cognitive health benefits of aerobic exercise but also highlights the extensive communication between the immune system and the central nervous system.”- Paul Garcia, Emory University, US 

Current top 3 recommendations

Rankings are generated using the article recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.

“This is a pragmatic, international trial, in which 3000 patients were randomized to either restrictive versus liberal fluid management. The patients randomized to restrictive fluid management had more incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) and wound infections than patients in the liberal fluid group. The results of this study contradict the results of previous studies that showed the protective effect of restrictive fluid management on kidney function.” – Ehab Farag, Cleveland Clinic, US

“The authors have employed new technology, single cell transcriptome profiling, to address a long standing research question of dendritic cell (DC) subset development and function and have revealed unappreciated heterogeneity as well as the existence of a new subset within known DC populations.”- Tara Strutt, University of Central Florida, US

“New antibiotics are needed to combat the tide of resistant microbes. However, most current antibiotics are directed against only a few essential functions. Altogether this study validates a new target within RNAP and identifies a new potential antibiotic.” – Joanna Goldberg, Emory University School of Medicine, US 

Hidden Jewels

Hidden Jewels rankings only include articles published in specialist journals, recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.

“This fascinating paper suggests that there are two types of mitochondria found within interscapular brown fat whose abundance and function are both temperature sensitive. It identifies peridroplet mitochondria that have a different function to those found in the cytoplasm and appear to support triacylglyceride synthesis.” – Michael Symonds, University of Nottingham, UK  

“Most bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells (BM HSC) niches are occupied, right? Wrong. Shimoto et al. demonstrate that adoptive transfer of high numbers of marked donor HSCs into non-ablated recipients leads not to competitive replacement of endogenous HSCs but to increased numbers of total engrafted HSCs (i.e. donor + host).”- Lisa Borghesi, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, US

“In this article, the Kintner lab build on previous work showing that mechanical strain sets the axis of planar polarity of ciliated epithelia. Here, they show that strain is also active to pattern ciliated organs such as the left-right organizer by using a set of elegant experimental approaches only possible with Xenopus.” – Julien Vermot, Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, France