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Researchers link sedentary behavior to thinning in brain region critical for memory
Sitting too much is linked to changes in a section of the brain that is critical for memory, according to a preliminary study by UCLA researchers of middle-aged and older adults.
Studies show that, like smoking, too much sitting increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and premature death. Researchers at UCLA wanted to see how sedentary behavior influences brain health, especially regions of the brain that are critical to memory formation.
UCLA researchers recruited 35 people ages 45 to 75 — 25 women and 10 men — and asked about their physical activity levels and the average number of hours per day they spent sitting over the previous week. Each person had a high-resolution MRI scan, which provides a detailed look at the medial temporal lobe, a brain region involved in the formation of new memories.
The researchers found that sedentary behavior is a significant predictor of thinning of the medial temporal lobe and that physical activity, even at high levels, is insufficient to offset the harmful effects of sitting for extended periods. This study does not prove that too much sitting causes thinner brain structures, but instead that more hours spent sitting are associated with thinner regions, researchers said.
Also at Bustle.
Sedentary behavior associated with reduced medial temporal lobe thickness in middle-aged and older adults (open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195549) (DX)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @11:11PM
Unlikely. When you're moving around your eyes are constantly and fully providing you with different information. When you're sitting looking at the same place most of your surroundings aren't changing thus the important data feed from your eyes is significally less. Your brain doesn't need to pay as much attention to your visual input and has less data to store in memory. You know what your cube walls look like and you reconstruct it from a small source of memory whenever you need to recall it. Your brain doesn't store an entire new copy of your cube wall every time your eye sees it.
The brain doesn't waste resources on things it doesn't need* so if you're constantly not providing new, massive amounts of input for storage into memory there's less of a need for excellent memory storage abilities.
*What isn't used slowly degrades until gone. Often used things constantly gets reinforced. Thing of your brain as a road network. The smaller roads crumble to dust while the most used routes turn into speedy highways ('muscle' memory).