
Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Gray Matter Volume - prostoalex
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(19)30522-1/fulltext
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elric
Conclusion:

> Cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with GM volume, total
> brain volume, and specific GM and white matter clusters in brain areas not
> primarily involved in movement processing. These results, from a
> representative population sample, suggest that CRF might contribute to
> improved brain health and might, therefore, decelerate pathology-specific GM
> decrease.

Given that the brain uses roughly 20% of the body's energy, it doesn't seem
terribly surprising that cardiovascular/respiratory fitness would positively
correlate with brain "fitness". What seems surprising is how big the
difference is. ~5cm³ of grey matter. That's a couple of grapes!

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762236
That ~5cm is for 1 standard deviation increase in VO2peak. The charts show it
increasing linearly with VO2peak. Too bad VO2max decreases with age (due to a
linear fall off in max heart rate with age). I highly recommend Bay Area
cycling.

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JohnJamesRambo
What about for those of us that don’t live in the Bay Area? Are our brains
condemned?

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762236
It depends on how safely one can cycle elsewhere. I wouldn't know, so I won't
recommend it (but if it is possible, definitely!). But there are other
options, such as rowing, running, Nordic skiing, swimming, etc.

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merpnderp
My area seems to average about a 30 AQI, which I guess is good (it's 28
today). But I stopped biking a long time ago do to safety after many
incidents, there's just no safe place to ride a bike in most of the US. To be
fair, riding a motorcycle is far more dangerous, and people still do that. So
I guess it is up to your risk tolerance.

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alfonsodev
It would be cool to upload you own scan and get GM volume, it might motivate
the intelectual types to exercise more, if they could see visually the gains
(the GM gains)

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shredprez
Do you even maximize your grey matter volume, bro?

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criddell
Never skip brain day.

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astockwell
I literally laughed out loud at this. Well done.

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thesz
Let me be first to mention link between amount of endurance activity and serum
level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). NIH is down for me, at
least, so all I can offer is for you to google it and around it, it may change
your life.

The longer you train, the higher elevation is. On the other hand, the longer
one trains, the longer fitness stays.

(by the way, walking 35 km per week in average has been shown as stopping of
brain mass decline in some important parts of brain, related to internal organ
regulation, learning, higher order functions and long term memory)

Thus, nothing surprising here.

