Gains For Brains — The Neuroprotective Effects of Strength Training
The brain health benefits of strength training go beyond improvements in mood. They also include improved cognitive function, beneficial changes to brain structures, increased brain neuroplasticity, and protection against ageing and neurodegeneration.
A team of researchers at the University of Sydney conducted a clinical trial for older people at high risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, which is a form of dementia that involves a rapid deterioration of the brain. One risk factor for Alzheimer’s is cognitive impairment. If an older adult is experiencing any sort of cognitive impairment, they are at a one in 10 risk of developing dementia within a year.
Cognitive impairment could include things like a decline in memory and other thinking skills. However, these impairments don’t necessarily interfere with everyday functioning to the extent of more severe impairments, such as the ones experienced in those with forms of dementia.
Participants of this randomised control trial were allocated to either computerised brain training, strength training or a combination of both. These interventions lasted for 6 months.
Results found that strength training led to cognitive performance benefits linked to protecting against degeneration of the hippocampus — the brain structure for memory and learning.
In the control group, in which no strength training was performed, participants’ hippocampi shrunk by 3–4% over a period of 18 months, while those in the strength training group only saw 1–2% reductions, and in some other regions, no reductions at all.
Another interesting finding from this study showed that strength training provided protection against hippocampal degeneration for up to 12 months after the training stopped.
This study suggests that strength training has a neuroprotective effect on the brain that slows down the degeneration of brain tissue in those at risk of Alzheimer’s disease. These effects seem to occur long-term, with benefits extending as far as 12 months after one stops their strength training protocol.
Source –