Exercise grows Brains!!!

Animal Studies Provide Hope
Aerobic exercise might be even better for your brain than your body. A new study from the Salk institute shows that exercise may possibly cause brain cells to regrow, a previously unproven phenomenon. "After conducting maze tests, the neuroscientist Fred H. Gage and his colleagues examined brain samples from the mice. Conventional wisdom had long held that animal (and human) brains weren't malleable: after a brief window early in life, the brain could no longer grow or renew itself. The supply of neurons - the brain cells that enable us to think - was believed to be fixed almost from birth. As the cells died through aging, mental function declined. The damage couldn't be staved off or repaired.All of the mice showed this vivid proof of what's known as "neurogenesis," or the creation of new neurons. But the brains of the athletic mice in particular showed many more. These mice, the ones that scampered on running wheels, were producing two to three times as many new neurons as the mice that didn't exercise." (New York Times , 2007)
Obviously it is too early to say the same thing occurs in humans, but other studies using PET scans have shown an enhancement of blood flow to the brains of elderly folks who exercised, potentially increasing the liklehood for new cell growth. Like I have been telling everyone, exercise is truely the fountain of yout, and now science seems to be backing this up!