Incidence of Alzheimer's disease is reported to be low among dancers. Regards, GL ----------- Con Menezes wrote:
Evidence links exercise with mental acuity. -"Washington Post" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052402608.html?wprss=rss_health The result was "significant improvement in learning and memory," she said. When she trained mice to find a safe platform in a tank of murky water, a standard test of learning ability, "aged runners" caught on after a short teaching period, she said. Sedentary mice "never found it at all." The neuroscience of all this is complex. Researchers have shown that exercise helps produce a protein called "brain-derived neurotrophic factor," which "improves the function of neurons, encourages their growth, and strengthens and protects them against the natural process of cell death," according to Ratey's book. Working out also may improve blood flow in the brain, as it does in other parts of the body. It may even delay accumulation in the brain of plaque associated with Alzheimer's disease.
