REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU EXERCISE WAS GOOD/BAD FOR YOU!
by Hazed
Exercise can make you forgetful, according to new studies carried out on mice. That is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether your memories are of pleasant experiences or something nasty.
Adult mice that ran around a wheel after they experienced an event were more likely to forget the experience than mice who stayed inactive, according to researchers at the University of Toronto.
The exercise prompts the brain to produce new neurons, using a process called neurogenesis, which wipes out the rodents’ memories.
The study was initiated by a husband and wife team of neuroscientists, who wondered about the causes of infantile amnesia. They noticed that their two-year-old daughter had no problem remembering things that happened a day or two ago, but couldn’t remember events from several months in the past. They thought that neurogenesis might have something to do with the memories being lost. The brains of human infants exhibit abundant neurogenesis so it seemed a possible culprit.
Knowing that running boosts neurogenesis in mice, they set out to test whether it affected their memories. They first placed the animals in a distinctive box and gave them electric shocks. This taught the mice to fear that particular environment. Then they gave the mice a running wheel or let them remain idle. Returning the mice to the box after a day or a week, both groups recognised the familiar environment and exhibited a fear response by freezing in place.
But after two weeks, only the idle mice froze. The exercisers seemed to have forgotten their fears.
Assuming that this effect works on adult humans, it suggests that going running can make you forget. “People do always say that running clears your mind,” said Sheena Josselyn, one of the neuroscientists, “and in a sense I would say that’s true.” But clearing one’s mind is not necessarily detrimental, she added. “For instance, I don’t want to remember where I parked my car two weeks ago because that’s going to interfere with me remembering where I parked it today... We think that neurogenesis and forgetting is an important part of healthy memory. We don’t want to remember absolutely everything.”
It could also have implications for those who suffer horrific, traumatising experiences. It would be worth testing whether exercise can help with PTSD.
Source: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/39915/title/Exercise-Can-Erase-Memories/
