Dad,
The TED talk on the factors that improved neurogenesis (production of new nerve in adult brains) resulting in improved memory and improved mood was informative. It is perfectly consistent with what I have previously pointed out in my DrLiverman.blogspot.com. It begs the question and evidentiary exegesis below.
How does intermittent fasting, Exercise, Reservatrol, antidepressants and brain training increases neurogenesis in the hippocampus (the memory learning center of the brain) thereby improving memory and improving mood? And the corollary question, how does alcohol, opiates and other depressant drugs, high fat diet, chemotherapy, sedentary lifestyle and non-stimulating non-learning environment decrease neurogenesis in the hippocampus thereby degrading memory and degrading mood?
Herein is an article comparing studies in rodents and humans verifying exercise and virtual or real environmental enrichment via 1. BDNF (and its pathway) and 2. VEGF (blood vessel growth factor) were fundamental to spatial neurons (bookmarks), neurogenesis, learning, positive mood and neuron survival.
I want to draw your attention to the relation between memory and navigation of actual(or virtual space.) Prodigious memory feats use memory palaces or a well known location tag for ordered memory objects. This is akin to a database written on new cells and dendrites (physical connections with other nerves like a clasped handshake) on flash memory in the hippocampus. Consolidation is the process of transferring those flash memories to cerebral (thinking part of the brain) and subcortical ( primitive reptile brain) neurons under stress and over time. This is best accomplished with quality sleep both REM (rapid eye movement dreaming sleep ) and NonREM sleep.
The metabolic health and energy efficiency of those brain cells preserve memory and make them available for use in making new memories or understanding the present in relation to the past and perhaps predicting a possible or likely future. With exercise, diet and thinking able to increase neurogenesis/ via BDNF, a bio marker of a metabolic turbocharger, and in conjunction with adequate blood flow for energy support from VEGF, it is clear that the exercise, diet and cognitive activity improves and preserves the entire body of cells.
Consider disabled ALS astrophysicist Stephen Hawkins, his body survives decade from a short term terminal disease disconnected from direct brain wiring but enriched from brain activity in a theoretic and virtual realm of physics by the production and sharing of brain produced BDNF. The BDNF produced is released to peripheral blood and can become a metabolic turbocharger of any cell type. This is repeatedly demonstrated when exogenous BDNF is injected into organisms and cell cultures.
Lifestyles that promote BDNF improve cellular structure and function and thereby improves life, central executive function (frontal lobe where non-impulsive judgement takes place), mood, social function and the real and virtual environments in which one lives.
One can choose BDNF increasing lifestyle or BDNF decreasing lifestyle with opposite results.
Most do not choose but live a blended lifestyle. These choices are more impactful at the beginning and end of life before 25 and after 40.
Environmental enrichment and neurogenesis: from mice to humans
The brain is a dynamic structure that constantly undergoes cellular and molecular changes in response to the environment. Ultimately, these experience-dependent changes modify and shape behavior. One example of this neuroplasticity is the robust and continuous generation of new neurons that occurs in the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus. These new neurons are thought to play a fundamental role in hippocampus-dependent behavior and are modulated by experience and changes in the environment. In this review, we will focus on the cognitive and molecular relationship between environmental enrichment and adult neurogenesis. In addition, we discuss some of the similarities between the human and animal literature in regards to neurogenesis, hippocampus-dependent behavior, and environmental enrichment.
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 2015, 4:56–62
This review comes from a themed issue on Cognitive enhancement
Edited by Barbara J Sahakian and Arthur F Kramer
Available online 2nd March 2015
2352-1546/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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