Can’t find your keys? Do yoga for better recall

Washington: New research from the University of California, Irvine and Japan's University of Tsukaba found that even light exercises like tai chi or yoga can have a transformative impact on the part of the brain responsible for storing and organizing memories. While it has long been known that exercise is good for the brain, this study shows the very immediate benefits. The small study involved 36 healthy adults in their early 20s. In the first part of the study, they were each prescribed 10 minutes of exercise, after which they would be monitored with MRI scans. In the second part, they repeated the test but without exercise. According to the study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found a clear improvement in the connections in the regions that control detailed memory processing, the hippocampal dentate gyrus and cortical areas. In turn, that boost in connectivity made them more likely to remember certain things from the day before. “The hippocampus is critical for the creation of new memories; it's one of the first regions of the brain to deteriorate as we get older — and much more severely in Alzheimer's disease,” said project co- leader Michael Yassa, UCI professor and Chancellor’s Fellow of neurobiology & behavior. “Improving the function of the hippocampus holds much promise for improving memory in everyday settings.” Previously, it was not clear that exercise could affect the brain so quickly. We knew that exercise boosted the production of new brain cells, but that takes time.