New research done by scientists from Texas A&M College of Medicine using rats has shown that neurogenensis of the formations of new neurons during exercise does not cause memories to be forgotten. This is contrary to an earlier study in 2014 using mice that found exercise led mice to forget their memories.
"We had completely contradictory findings from the 2014 study. Now we need to study other species to fully understand this phenomenon," said Maheedhar Kodali, PhD, the new study's first author, as per Science Daily. Kodali is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The report said rats are more similar to humans physiologically, compared to mice.
Rat Study Finds Exercise Does Not Lead to Memory Loss https://t.co/MAFqiqIAQK #mhsm #mentalhealth pic.twitter.com/Uy6UOZqGiV
— PsychCentral (@PsychCentral) August 4, 2016
Medical News Today reported that the rats were trained to complete a water maze for several days. Moving in the maze served as the memories. After this, half of them were placed in cages with running wheels while half were placed in cages without running wheels for a period of four weeks. The rats in the cages with running wheels showed greater increase in the formation of new neurons.
Both groups of rats were then placed back in the water maze and observed. Both groups of rats showed similar memory recall regarding the navigation of the maze. This suggested that exercise, signified with the physical activity done by the rats in cages with running wheels, did not cause the loss of memories.
"Exercise is not at all harmful," said Ashok K. Shetty, Ph.D., according to a report in PsychCentral. Shetty eaches in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine at the Texas A&M College of Medicine. Shetty added that exercise does not cause memory problems and that there has been research showing that exercise is good for making new memories.
In the previous study conducted back in 2014, the mice who exercised were observed to have greater neurogenesis. However, the neurons formed during exercise appeared to cause the mice to forget previously formed memories before they started exercising, according to the report.
