A recent study says that jogging (or any exercise) can help a great deal in making you sharp. New cells are produced in your brain and this helps you a lot in enhancing your memory.
Generation of new cells in the brain of a grown up is known as neurogenesis. When the study was conducted on mice, scientists observed something interesting. Mice which are made to run regularly developed new sets of neurons.
Also, such mice possessed a sharper mind and they are able to analyse the surroundings better. The research concluded that neurogenesis which is a result of exercise can impact the quality of the brain in a positive way.
The brain works through pattern separation when it has to analyse its surroundings. For example, when a chess player has to win, he needs to remember the shapes and patterns of the chessboard, bishops and its pawns.
As a part of the study, scientists used two groups of mice. The first group was kept inactive whereas the second one was made to run on wheels. After a while, both the groups were examined in certain ways to test the brain activity and the active mice were able to recognise certain patterns well after the test.
As the group of mice which was involved in running performed better in the pattern recognition test, researchers were able to conclude that exercise could alter or enhance the brain activity.
Also, when the brains of the running mice were examined, scientists could clearly see that there were some cells which were born after the running activity. So, what does jogging do to your brain? Well it makes your brain fresh through neurogenesis.
This made it clear that exercise could induce neurogenesis in the brain which means new cells are born. This could surely help animals survive well and when it comes to humans, exercise would keep the person alert, active and with fresh thoughts.