Twin Study Suggests Exercise Has A Dramatic Effect On The Brain

You already know that exercise can give you bigger muscles. Now, fascinating new research involving identical twins suggests it can do the same for your brain. A small-scale study showed that twins who worked out regularly had significantly more gray matter -- especially in the regions of the brain involved in motor control -- than their twins who exercised less. Since the twin pairs had grown up in the same environment (and, of course, shared the same genetic makeup), it seems likely that their exercise habits and not some other factor accounted for the difference in brain volume. "We were somewhat surprised that so clear change in brain structure occurred as a result of differences in exercising during adulthood, as the exercise habits of these twin pairs were similar during childhood," Dr. Urho Kujala, a professor of sports and exercise medicine at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland who oversaw the study, told The Huffington Post in an email. Got twins? For the study, the researchers analyzed the body compositions, insulin levels, and MRI brain scans of 10 pairs of young adult identical twin brothers. In each pair, one of the twins indicated in a questionnaire that he exercised regularly on his own while the other twin didn't. "On average, the more active members of twin pairs were jogging three hours more per week compared to their inactive co-twins," Kujala told HealthDay. While the twins' individual exercise routines differed, there were no major differences ...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news