Ruchika Shaurya Prakash

TL;DR: It is shown that aerobic exercise training increases the size of the anterior hippocampus, leading to improvements in spatial memory, and that increased hippocampal volume is associated with greater serum levels of BDNF, a mediator of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus.

TL;DR: The results suggest that cardiovascular fitness is associated with the sparing of brain tissue in aging humans, and suggest a strong biological basis for the role of aerobic fitness in maintaining and enhancing central nervous system health and cognitive functioning in older adults.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined whether aerobic fitness training of older humans can increase brain volume in regions associated with age-related decline in both brain structure and cognition, and found significant increases in brain volume, in both gray and white matter regions, were found as a function of fitness training for the older adults who participated in the aerobic fitness intervention, but not for those who participated on the stretching and toning (nonaerobic) control group.

TL;DR: Investigating whether individuals with higher levels of aerobic fitness displayed greater volume of the hippocampus and better spatial memory performance than individuals with lower fitness levels found a triple association such that higher fitness levels were associated with larger left and right hippocampi after controlling for age, sex, and years of education.

TL;DR: This study provides the first evidence for exercise-induced functional plasticity in large-scale brain systems in the aging brain, using functional connectivity techniques, and offers new insight into the role of aerobic fitness in attenuating age-related brain dysfunction.