Exercise Enhances Long Term Memory
Mice that spent time running on wheels developed twice the normal number of new brain cells and increased their ability to distinguish new objects from familiar objects compared to inactive mice, reports a new study by researcher of the University of Basel. The results have been published in the journal Brain Plasticity.
02 December 2015
Exercise can result in the development of new brain cells in adult humans and animals – a process called adult neurogenesis. There has long been evidence suggesting that physical activity can improve neurogenesis. However, the precise functional role of new neurons for memory and learning remains under investigation.
A team of researchers led by Professor Josef Bischofberger from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel has now tested two groups of mice: one group was able to voluntarily use a running wheel, while the other group did not have a wheel. The researchers used a novel object recognition task in which the rodents had to distinguish a familiar object from a new one.
Active mice remember subtle differences
The test makes use of the innate curiosity of mice. First, the animals were made familiar with two identical objects in a familiar test box. After having been able to rest in their nests, they were placed in the test box again either after 90 minutes or 24 hours. In the meantime, one of the objects had been replaced. The particular difficulty: the new objects looked very similar to the familiar ones.
After 90 minutes both running and sedentary mice were able to distinguish similar and distinct objects. However, after 24 hours only the running animals remembered the objects and were able to distinguish them from similar new ones. The ability to recall subtle differences of objects from memory is called “pattern separation”. “This ability is of great importance in daily life. For example, in learning to play chess, it is crucial to be able to distinguish the bishop from the pawn,” explains Professor Bischofberger.
Running Enhances New Brain Cell Formation
Microscopic analysis of the mice’s brains showed that the running animals had developed about twice as many new cells compared the sedentary mice. In addition, those cells had more dendritic lengths – an important prerequisite for the formation of new synaptic links between nerve cells. This indicates that increased adult neurogenesis during running indeed contributes to the enhanced pattern separation.
Original source
Leoni Bolz, Stefanie Heigele and Josef Bischofberger
Running Improves Pattern Separation during Novel Object Recognition
Brain Plasticity, Volume 1, Issue 1 (2015) |doi: 10.3233/BPL-150010
Further information
Prof. Dr. Josef Bischofberger, University of Basel, Department of Biomedicine, phone: +41 61 267 27 29, email: josef.bischofberger@unibas.ch
