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Many of us have New Year’s resolutions that include getting fit(ter) this year, but did you know that your gym membership could improve your memory? Chris Gomez from the University of Chicago, a Faculty Member in our Neuronal Signalling Mechanisms section, has highlighted as ‘must read’ a study that confirms earlier studies in animals that exercising improves spatial memory.

The randomized controlled study on 120 adults without dementia, published in PNAS last year, investigated whether a one-year aerobic exercise programme could improve hippocampal volume. Participants were randomly assigned to an exercise or a stretching control group. After one year, the exercise group showed an increase in left and right hippocampal volume by 2.12% and 1.97% respectively, while the stretching control group presented a decrease of 1.40% and 1.43%. Gomez remarked,

[This study] provides some of the first direct experimental evidence in humans that aerobic exercise both improves memory function and increases anterior hippocampal volume.

Interestingly, this article not only shows how exercise could be used to improve memory but also how fitness is protective against age-related memory loss. This could mean that exercise can be used as a low-cost intervention to prevent dementia in the elderly and even improve memory from year to year.

In a related video from SFN, Wendy Suzuki, a Faculty Member in our Cognitive Neuroscience section, tells us about her research in humans into whether aerobic exercise can improve learning and memory.

She said,

This is a new area of research trying to identify the pattern and the kinds of exercise that are most beneficial [for memory and cognitive function] … [using] EEG and fMRI studies to try and understand exactly what brain areas may be affected.