The Gary Null Blog

ScienceDaily (July 25, 2011) — It's no secret that exercise has numerous beneficial effects on the body. However, a bevy of recent research suggests that these positive effects also extend to the brain, influencing cognition. In a new review article highlighting the results of more than a hundred recent human and animal studies on this topic, Michelle W. Voss, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her colleagues show that both aerobic exercise and strength training play a vital role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life. However, they also suggest that many unanswered questions remain in the field of exercise neuroscience -- including how various aspects of exercise influence brain physiology and function and how human and animal studies relate to each other -- and issue the call for further research to fill in these gaps.

The article, "Exercise, Brain and Cognition Across the Lifespan," is published in the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology.