Exercise stimulates the formation of new brain cells
June 28, 2007Exercise has a similar effect to antidepressants on depression. This has been shown by previous research. Now Astrid Bjørnebekk at Karolinska Institutet has explained how this can happen: exercise stimulates the production of new brain cells.
In a series of scientific reports, she has searched for the underlying biological mechanisms that explain why exercise can be a form of therapy for depression and has also compared it with pharmacological treatment with an SSRI drug.
The experiment studies were conducted on rats. The results show that both exercise and antidepressants increase the formation of new cells in an area of the brain that is important to memory and learning. Astrid Bjørnebekk’s studies confirm previous research results, and she proposes a model to explain how exercise can have an antidepressant effect in mild to moderately severe depression. Her study also shows that exercise is a very good complement to medicines.
“What is interesting is that the effect of antidepressant therapy can be greatly strengthened by external environmental factors,” she says.
Previous studies have shown that drug abusers have lowered levels of the dopamine D2 receptor in the brain's reward system. It has been speculated that this may be of significance to the depressive symptoms drug abusers often suffer from. These rat studies show that genetic factors may influence how external environmental factors can regulate levels of the dopamine D2 receptor in the brain.
“Different individuals may have differing sensitivity to how stress lowers dopamine D2 receptor levels, for example. This might be significant in explaining why certain individuals develop depression more readily than others,” she says.
Source: Karolinska Institutet
-
Physical activity yields feelings of excitement, enthusiasm
20 hours ago |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Exercise can improve the health and wellbeing of cancer patients
Jan 31, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Study of one million Americans shows obesity and pain linked
Jan 27, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (5) |
0
-
Study shows family solution to teen troubles
Jan 06, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (4) |
10
-
New approach to management of overeating in children
Dec 08, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Is Everyday Technology Killing Us?
Feb 08, 2012
-
Exercise and weight loss
Feb 08, 2012
-
Why do we have head aches? Our brains can't feel anything.
Feb 07, 2012
-
"The end of diseases" by David Agus, interview from Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Feb 04, 2012
-
Oncolytic adenovirus
Feb 04, 2012
-
Nutrition label stuffs and diets
Feb 02, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
Complex wiring of the nervous system may rely on a just a handful of genes and proteins
Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. ...
13 hours ago |
4.9 / 5 (9) |
1
|
Team isolates nerve cells involved in storing long term memory and gene proteins associated with them
(Medical Xpress) -- A research team in Taiwan has succeeded in isolating two nerve cells in fruit fly brains that are believed to be the major players in allowing for the formation of long term memories. Furthermore, ...
Seeing colors in music, tasting flavors in shapes may happen in life's early months
Famed violinist Itzhak Perlman sees a deep forest green whenever he plays a B-flat on his Stradivarius' G string. The A on the E string is red.
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
20 hours ago |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
2
|
Both maternal and paternal age linked to autism
Older maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with having a child with autism, according to a recently published study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
17 hours ago |
4.3 / 5 (3) |
0
|
New understanding of DNA repair could eventually lead to cancer therapy
A research group in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta is hoping its latest discovery could one day be used to develop new therapies that target certain types of cancers.
16 hours ago |
4.8 / 5 (6) |
0
|
Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)
The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.
New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission
Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. Theyre a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel such as an optical fiber o ...
Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...
New power source discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.
Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'
(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...
The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males
A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...