Staying Fit Improves Cognition Physical exercise triggers increased brain growth and translates into measurable improvements in cognitive function. Studies proving this initially were conducted on participants aged 50+. Two studies conducted by Dr. Arthur Kramer in 2010 on higher-fit and lower-fit 10 year old children confirmed that physical fitness in children is also associated with better cognitive performance and larger brain structures responsible for cognitive performance. These studies, although they do not show a causal […]
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Growing up in a weight obsessed culture is particularly difficult for girls. Healthy puberty requires the addition of body fat in the form of breasts and hips, at just the age when girls are particularly sensitive to body image. Girls talk with each other during play more than boys do.
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Physical Exercise and the Brain Physical exercise seems to slow and perhaps even halt or reverse the brain atrophy (shrinkage) that typically starts in a person’s forties, especially in the frontal regions of the brain responsible for executive function. In other words, exercise (aerobic exercise) can increase the brain’s volume of neurons (grey matter) and connections between neurones (white matter). This is possible according to neuroscientists because physical exercise triggers biochemical changes that spur […]
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We have big brains. This is one of the things that distinguishes humans from other primates, and it has many consequences. One is that because women’s hips are only so big, babies have to be born before their brains have grown to full size.
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Brain Plasticity Dr. Pascual-Leone was asked “How does plasticity work in the brain? How fast do changes occur? “There are different steps in neuroplasticity. One is a very rapid expansion of brain matter, which can be seen in about 1 week (for instance when someone is learning how to play a difficult finger sequence on a piano). This expansion results from the fact that the “wires” that connect the neurons responsible for that specific fingering […]
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