Smart Exercise

Pumping Up the Brain?

A recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine explored the question: Can low-voltage doses of electricity transmitted through hair, skin and skull directly into particular regions of the brain make already healthy people sharper and/or more alert?

The article discusses Aron Barbey, director of the University of Illinois Decision Neuroscience Lab, and his experiments with Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation (tDCS). Sounds like something right of a science fiction movie!


Okay, I doubt it looks anything like this. More like...



Yeah, way creepier. Anyway, back to the story...

While this tDCS research is still in its infancy, there is some limited evidence that it appears to recruit additional neurons toward specific tasks such as cognition and memory. While it is hard to fathom the idea that shopping malls of the future might have brain charging kiosks, perhaps this research lays groundwork for such a fantastic vision.

But, what does this have to do with exercise and fitness?

In a new study of tDCS, part of the protocol involves subjects undergoing physical fitness and diet training. The studies have found that "exercise on its own has already proven at least as effective as tDCS in enhancing cognitive performance."

In other words, working out makes you smarter!



The article states that, "According to Barbey, exercise has been especially impressive effect on executive functions." Apparently intensive exercise increases executive function for 20 to 30 minutes after the exercise session! Surely, many of us have our own anecdotal experience with this in this is just a case of science confirming what we already intuit.

For more, see Plug in Your Brain, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2016.

As for me, I'm going to go for a run and solve a Rubik's cube.