Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
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Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
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Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#2[deleted]
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#3The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection?
Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that doesn't actually make sense, since the extra metabolic expenditure of these processes can't possibly be all that high, and doesn't the brain use almost the same (huge) amount of resources whether it's at rest or very cognitively active?
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#4The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that d…
It's probably not that complicated. It probably goes something like, our species developed using our brains and exercising in harmony, so they wound up linked to eachother, simply because everyone was exercising. The two systems developed together, and simply because there was no reason NOT to be, wound up intertwined.
Like what I've heard about automatic transmissions. Supposedly, some automatic transmissions do not lubricate themselves when coasting in neutral (the pump is driven engine-side), and for this reason you shouldn't regularly coast long distances at freeway speeds in neutral on an affected automatic. Why is it this way? Simply because it's easy to slave the pump off the engine-side, and at 65mph, you generally have your engine engaged! So why NOT?
Evolution is all about selective pressures, but equally important are the absence of those pressures.
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#5The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that d…
>but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection?
Maybe you should be asking the opposite question like why should evolution reward sedentary life? Human history involves daily exercise in some form that is more strenuous than a long walk and that's clearly connected to our general health and well-being both mentally and physically (why should these be separate to evolution?). What we're doing today is the exception, we shouldn't expect everything to work out as before.
I imagine we're in a temporary lull. Either modern society will collapse and we'll go back to farming or hunting and gathering, or we'll invent a exercise pill. There is effort in this direction:
http://qz.com/516757/scientists-are-working-on-an-exercise-p...
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#6The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that d…
Interestingly, exercise itself actually helps get an energetically favorable type of energy to the brain in the first place: lactate.[1] Moreover, lactate in the brain triggers the release of BDNF, which causes neurogenesis.[2]
I recorded a video conversation with the pioneer of the lactate shuttle theory behind this mechanism which may interest you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lThFQM503EU
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactate_shuttle_hypothesis
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#7The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that d…
> but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection?
With long term phenotypes like brain health, there probably isn't enough selective pressure to create or maintain this relationship.
Rather this result is likely the result of coincidence, and that coincidence was not deleterious enough to be removed by selection. Ex :
Exercise stimulates repair enzymes > Excess Repair Enzymes Filter Into Blood Stream > Excess Repair Enzymes Also Fix Brain Cells.
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#8The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that d…
>but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe you should be asking the opposite question like why should evolution reward sedentary life? Human history involves daily exercise in some form that is more strenuous than a long walk and that's clearly connected to our general health and well-being both mentally and physically (why should these be separate to evolution?). What we're doing tod…
>Maybe you should be asking the opposite question like why should evolution reward sedentary life?
If you can live a sedentary lifestyle and still produce children, then evolution doesn't care. In fact, an indoors lifestyle is much more fit in the longterm than a life of hard labor.
Evolution isn't trying to create the Platonic Ideal of a human. It just is a thoughtless mechanism to efficiently reproduce DNA.
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#9The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that d…
your heart is a pump, when you exercise your heart pumps harder and faster, your legs create a flowing motion that helps the blood make it back to the heart.
during all this the brain experiences a surge in blood levels, oxygen, metabolic exchanges happen faster and so your brain is more effective.
add into that, the body breaks down fats to power you, those fats have omega fatty acids that are released into the blood stream and go to the brain to provide nutrients.
this is why drinking coffee wakes you up.
what I really want is a pair of those leg pumps that assist the heart, so I can sit on my ass longer and code whilst getting the benefits of exercise on my brain :)
Re: Exercise Releases Brain-Healthy Protein
#10The connection between exercise and brain health has now been super conclusively and astonishingly shown, but what are some possible evolutionary reasons for this connection? Maybe the extra energetic investment in brain health is only justified when there is an energetic surplus, and doing exercise correlates with having extra energy available? (As opposed to starving and thus needing to conserve energy.) But that d…
It's probably not that complicated. It probably goes something like, our species developed using our brains and exercising in harmony, so they wound up linked to eachother, simply because everyone was exercising. The two systems developed together, and simply because there was no reason NOT to be, wound up intertwined. Like what I've heard about automatic transmissions. Supposedly, some automatic transmissions do not…
True, but this does smell an awful lot like a control signal (in the sense of a control system).