from an evolutionary perspective we've
evolved really big brains that are
especially expensive to run you know
they're almost like an american hummer
they're very very big they're very
inefficient and they cost a lot of
energy to keep going even at rest and
we're especially interested in physical
exercise because we know that with
physical activity we can increase blood
flow to the brain there's no curative
treatment for neurodegeneration so
exercise has emerged as a very very
powerful countermeasure and the big
question is how much
what type how often
what we're identifying there is that
especially for people that are in
particularly great shape or they can't
exercise perform anything that's
terribly exertional a control squat just
this using gravity can be quite a useful
intervention
much of what we're doing in the lab is
trying to push different aspects of
exercise in terms of the type of
exercise and the intensity and the
duration
trying to almost hit that sweet spot
where we can see maximized optimized
adaptation recent advances in technology
have allowed scientists to actually see
how physical activity benefits the brain
we can measure blood flow to the brain
through the neck through the heart
through the skull and what we're showing
in our research is that you don't have
to be huffing and puffing and doing hard
exercise in order to gain targeted
benefit so the great thing about
squatting is when you stand up you're
working against gravity when you go down
you're working with gravity and what
happens is blood flow to the brain
swings high and low so the up down up
down you're almost testing the shock
absorbers of a car here you're testing
the shock absorbers of the brain and
it's that swinging of flow that we think
stimulates the vascular endothelium the
inner lining of the vessel to release
all of the good stuff that we need to
drive some of the things like an
improvement in mental ability mental
gymnastics the cognition memory and
learning as an example your ability to
to remember to think to solve problems
to ask questions
you can squat stand for three minutes on
three minutes off if we use it as a
training stimulus for up to about a
month
four to five times a day three to four
times a week we can see an improvement
in the measurements that we make that
tell us how quickly blood is coming into
the brain when it's challenged and
actually more so than some of the
standard steady state exercise
interventions that would require you to
exercise sub maximally for say 30 to 40
minutes you can even throw another layer
to your exercise routine to push your
brain further as you're doing squats you
see people in the gym reading or even
doing crosswords as they're exercising
so there you've got a double whammy and
what we do know is that we can further
improve flow to the brain by
providing what we call a cognitive
stressor a cognitive load
oxygen deprivation experienced in some
extreme sports can also be used as a
stressor to push the brain's limits and
to understand how its defense mechanisms
work
as a former athlete himself dr damian
bailey is a subject in his own research
you've got to practice what you preach
we'd use a whole range of extreme sports
where we can challenge the brain in
order to gain different insight into
these mechanisms things like free diving
you know a single breath no oxygen
skydiving you know stress and less
oxygen high altitude mountaineering lots
of activity less oxygen
we're so sensitive to oxygen lack so
when we go for example to high altitude
to extreme altitudes extremely low
levels of oxygen we get this increase in
flow so the brain is compensating all of
the time it's a bit like a tightrope
walker you know you're walking across
this what we call bioenergetic type rope
you've got to make those necessary
adjustments in order to stay on the
tightrope these models are you know
great ways of poking the brain to see
how it responds
tracking these brains responses might
shed light not only on how to treat
illnesses like dementia
but also on how to make long-term space
missions possible the brain is
especially sensitive to changes in
gravity you can take gravity away
completely in space right and what
happens is blood flows up to the head
and you've only got to look at
astronauts puffy faces red puffy swollen
faces and skinny legs and one of the
potential complications with that
is that over the long term this can
raise potentially raise pressure inside
the brain and that can influence your
vision and this is a big problem in fact
this is one of the biggest problems that
we're battling with and looking to do
experiments to try to understand and to
solve and develop countermeasures for a
man
woman flight to mars italian researchers
have developed a model with mice to
investigate this topic we thought but
what happened when you cannot move it
because there are situations such as now
where people is on the couch for many
months because there is the restriction
due to covered or because they are sick
or they have to stay on the space for
many months
the mice's hind legs were suspended but
the front legs were left free
this meant that although the animals
were unable to move they could still
feed themselves
after 14 days of the unloading we found
that
the
neurogenesis of this
model is decreased
in fact they found a staggering 70
decrease in the number of neural stem
cells compared to a control group we
always think about the circulation about
bones out of the assets but we have to
think also about the brain performance
inactivity reduces blood flow to the
brain and not getting enough oxygen can
have dire consequences
when things go wrong with the brain you
only need a very small window in order
to induce damage so that's why we're
interested in physical activity it's the
only countermeasure out there at the
moment and we're just starting to
scratch the surface as far as the brain
is concerned
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