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There is nothing to fix. HN doesn‘t allow such long titles.
Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
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Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#12I think the difference in outcomes is likely to be down to "continuous learning of new movement patterns and choreographies" vs "participants performed the same exercises repeatedly ... We avoided combined arm and leg movements in order to keep coordinative demands low". That said, I think dance is great.
That said, dance is a really fun way to package repetitive movements. And if younger people did more of it, the men on this site would spend less time bitching about how hard it is to meet women. *cough*
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#13...in mice
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#14Anecdotal bur my ex's grandmother would do swing dancing as a hobby with her husband and later when they retired at like 50, they would swing dance like 3-5 times a week at home. Her grandmother is now 102 years old and up until recently was the sharpest, and wittiest resident at her care home despite being the oldest.
Her hearing is great, her eyesight is great. The only things going slowly are her short term memory and ability to walk but she still does with her walker.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#15I would like to see a comparison with other types of physical exercise that contain an element of continuous learning. Wrestling, BJJ, even boxercise, crossfit and such. Since the argument seems to be specifically about learning new routines and how that impacts neuroplasticity, dance vs other more cognitively challenging workouts would be an interesting comparison.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#16"Regarding cognition, both groups improved in attention and spatial memory, but no significant group differences emerged." So, the dance group showed increase volume of brain matter. Is there a benefit to having the extra brain volume, even if it doesn't lead to improved cognition? Is it possible that increased volume just helped them become better dancers?
Musical cognition is loosely connected to attention (maybe disconnected entirely by this metric, music seems special) and spatial memory is irrelevant. So "better dancers" seems a bit myopic, they might be improving their understanding of rhythm and melody in a more general sense.
(IMO the headline-level conclusion of this study is unsurprising - dancing is far more cognitively demanding than gym exercise!)
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#17Probably some styles of martial arts would (do imho) work well then. Disclaimer ; did not RTFA.
Edit: +styles of
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#18Obligatory mention of the fact that the best exercise is the one you’ll do, regardless of what it is. Dance might be better for your brain than cycling, but neither helps anything if you give up on them after a few months. So find the (best) exercise you’ll actually keep up with, and keep up with that. Even if it’s only walking a few blocks a day, that’s better than nothing.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#19I do MRI work, and my gut is that none of the claims about dance vs. exercise would replicate. The behavioral data suggests that activity of some type will improve cognitive function (main effects of time). Such beneficial effects of activity on the brain have been shown before, and this is generally accepted. However, the authors' behavioral data doesn't show any difference between the dance vs. exercise groups. This means that the study is overall off to a pretty bad start if their goal is to study dance vs. exercise differences...
The brain data claims to show that the dance vs. exercise groups showed different levels of improvement in various regions. However, the brain effects are tiny and are probably just random noise (I'm referring to those red spots, which are very small and almost certainly don't reflect proper correction for multiple hypotheses given that the authors effectively tested 1000s or 10000s of different areas). The authors' claims about BDNF are supported by a p-value of p = .046, and having main conclusions hinge on p-values of p > .01 usually means the conclusions are rubbish.
In general, my priors on "we can detect subtle changes in brain matter over a 6-week period" are also very low. Perhaps, a study with this sample size could show that activity of some kind influences the brain over such a short length, but I am extremely skeptical that this type of study could detect differences between dance vs. exercise effects.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#20Probably some styles of martial arts would (do imho) work well then. Disclaimer ; did not RTFA. Edit: +styles of
Depends on the martial art: head injuries would complicate that analysis; tai chi isn't terribly aerobic, etc.