. Episodic memory is a type of long-term memory that involves conscious recall of past experiences along with their context in terms of time, place, and associated emotions. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Prolonged running may improve pattern separation ability, our ability to distinguish between very similar events and stimuli, a behavior closely linked to neurogenesis in adults.
Researchers have found that long-term running as part of middle-aged exercise helps connect “old” new neurons born in early adulthood, or adult-born neurons, in a network relevant to the maintenance of episodic memory encoding during aging. Episodic memory is a type of long-term memory that involves conscious recall of past experiences along with their context in terms of time, place, and associated emotions.
The researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU), USA, and the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV), Mexico, published in the journal eNeuro, said the study provided new insight into the benefits of exercise and that it would encourage adults need to motivate them to keep moving throughout their lives, especially in middle age. Deficits in cognitive ability associated with aging are associated with decreased volume of the hippocampus. The hippocampus and adjacent cortex are brain regions essential for learning and memory.
Aging-related decline in memory function is also associated with the degradation of synaptic (connection between two neurons) inputs from the perirhinal and entorhinal cortex to the hippocampus, brain regions essential for pattern separation, and contextual and spatial memory. In addition to significantly increasing these mature neurons, long-term running was found to enhance the recruitment of presynaptic (sub)cortical cells into their network. That is, running not only rescued perirhinal connectivity, but also increased and altered the contribution of the entorhinal cortex to the network of old adult neurons. “Prolonged exercise has major benefits for the aging brain and may prevent aging-related decline in memory function by increasing survival and modifying the network of adult-born neurons born during early adulthood, thereby facilitating their participation in cognitive processes, said Henriette van Praag, corresponding author, associate professor of biomedical sciences at FAU.
“Prolonged running may improve pattern separation ability, our ability to distinguish between very similar events and stimuli, a behavior closely related to neurogenesis in adults, which is among the first to show deficits indicative of age-related amnesia,” said Carmen Vivir. , corresponding author, Department of Physiology, Biophysics and Neurosciences, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN in Mexico.
“We show that running also significantly increases backprojection from the dorsal subiculum to old mature granule cells,” van Praag said. “This connectivity may provide navigation-related information and mediate the long-term running-induced improvement in spatial memory function.” “Our study provides insight into how chronic exercise, beginning in young adulthood and continuing through middle age, helps preserve memory function as we age, highlighting the relevance of incorporating exercise into our daily lives,” said Vivar.
In this study, the researchers studied the effects of prolonged running on a network of new hippocampal neurons generated in middle age in young adult mice. More than six months after tagging the adult-born neurons with a fluorescent reporter vector, they identified and quantified the direct afferent inputs to these adult-born neurons in the hippocampus and (sub)cortical regions, when the mice were middle-aged.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)