Newsweek has a new issue out showing the link between excercise and the boost it gives to the brain. In their journalistic flare, they claim that this is a new understanding.
Hardly.
It is well known that there is an important connection between the receptors in your muscles and joints and your brain. There are well-formed pathways that can easily be traced from the joint and muscle mechanical receptors and various parts of the brain. These parts are not just parts that tell you where you are and where you are going, but to the parts that feed and support areas of the brain that help you think and formulate ideas.
These are not small pathways either. If you cut someone’s brain apart, you can see where the biggest, fastest neuronal pathways are. These big pathways are the ones used for movement.
We are creatures designed to move!
Movement is how our brains developed during evolution. Further, because we are the species that stand on two feet, we have developed the biggest brains. The cerebellum, the “little brain”, is actually very densely packed with neurons just for the coordination of movement.
But that’s not the only location where movement exerts influence. Movement signals also head straight to the thalamus, where all sensory signals go. In the thalamus, any information coming in influences all parts of the brain. Exercise, with its large barrage of movement, influences the rest of the brain tremendously.
Just another great reason to keep fit through exercise!