It is known, jogging is good for the body, for the line and for the morale. But that’s not all, since a Finnish study has just shown that this activity would also have a positive effect on our cognitive abilities and more particularly on our neurons.
Running facilitates neurogenesis. Indeed, regularly practicing this physical activity helps to stimulate our hippocampus, that is to say the area of the brain that governs our memory, but also our ability to learn. In the scientific journal Journal of Physiologya team of Finnish researchers details how they came to this conclusion.
In their methodology, these researchers used rats that they made run regularly and for a long time to reproduce the conditions of jogging in humans. They quickly observed that the formation of new neurons (neurogenesis) was more efficient in rodents that ran. In another group of rats, which had been made to do weight training, no change was observed in the neurons. As a reminder, our stock of neurons is mainly developed during our life in utero and our childhood, and it gradually declines once our brain development is complete.
If it has long been proven that running releases endorphins, which help to boost our morale, the fact that it can help us maintain efficient cognitive abilities is a novelty. It should be noted that running is not the only one to have this type of impact on the brain, since it concerns all activities called » cardio « .
Source: journal of physiology