The researchers observed 49 participants, aged nine to ten, and found that physically fit children tend to have a bigger hippocampus and also perform better on memory tests than kids who are less fit.
For the study, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to measure the relative size of specific structures in the brains of the child participants.
“This is the first study I know of that has used MRI measures to look at differences in brain between kids who are fit and kids who aren’t fit. Beyond that, it relates those measures of brain structure to cognition,” said University of Illinois psychology professor Art Kramer, who led the study with Laura Chaddok, doctoral student.
The study’s main focus was the hippocampus, a structure set deep in the brain and known to play a major role in memory and learning. Previous studies in older adults and animals have shown that exercise can enlarge the hippocampus. A bigger hippocampus is linked to stronger spatial reasoning and other cognitive tasks.
This study appears in the journal Brain Research.
Source: University of Illinois
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