Posted on 09/04/2023 6:30:37 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
New research supports the idea that the brains of older adults who maintain physical fitness by engaging in regular strenuous exercise more closely resemble those of younger adults.
The researchers used functional MRI to measure fluctuations in blood oxygen level-dependent signals as the 52 study participants performed tasks involving several varieties of cognitive control.
The fMRI scans indicated that young adults primarily used the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—a classical working memory, cognitive control center of the brain that is activated more as tasks became more demanding.
In general, the brain calls upon its resources like firefighters respond to a multi-alarm fire: If the task becomes more difficult than a single region can tackle, another station responds.
"Younger brains are more efficient. They don't need to work hard," Basak said. "They only need to use these extra resources when things get more difficult."
Older brains overactivate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex even when the task is simple.
"What we found is that these high-fit older adults overactivated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex only at moderate levels of task difficulty, whereas low-fit older participants used this region even for the simplest version of the task," Basak said. "Moreover, high-fit older adults compensated by activating another brain region, the superior parietal lobe.
The differences in both task performance and brain activity between young subjects and high-fit older ones were much smaller than the gaps between high-fit and low-fit older adults.
"A lot of things get worse as we get older," Basak said. "We showed that high levels of physical activity and high cardiorespiratory fitness allow you to recruit additional brain regions that help you compensate and maintain accuracy levels. So it seems that there are independent effects of fitness that may allow us to counteract some effects of aging."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Everything is deteriorating so much that any day us old timers feel good enough to exercise, it is very wise to do so.
At the very least.....WALK!
You can pick up the pace, and, increase flexibility and endurance, from there.
Interesting explanation for a very clear phenomenon.
Actually, "not feeling good" is just an excuse not to do it!
79, former cancer & dialysis patient -- walk three to five miles every single day -- feeling good or not.
I walk 4+ miles each day. I actually time myself with my Casio watch that has a stopwatch. My goal is 90 minutes walking. This week I have been a few minutes over that goal. Though Last week I was only getting to 85-6 minutes.
On our recent Eastern Europe trip by train and bus I learned that walking with that backpack full of groceries helped a lot in carrying our food, water, and supplies.
Correct. And when you don't do it you'll still feel "not good".
However, if you get off your ass and do it (and I'm talking to myself here because my inner brat screams I don't wanna all day long) after about 10 minutes and breaking a little sweat you're glad you got going and after you're done you really do feel better.
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