Damian McNamara April 17, 2018
Prolonged periods of sitting in middle age is tied to brain atrophy, new research shows. Using MRI, investigators found sedentary behavior is a significant predictor of medial temporal lobe (MTL) thinning and its substructures and that physical activity, even at high levels, does not offset the harmful effects of sitting for extended periods.
“The atrophy and anti-neuroplastic processes associated with cognitive decline are thought to begin in the medial temporal lobe. The hippocampal formation and its surrounding structures, specifically, are essential for memory function,” lead author, Prabha Siddarth, PhD, a biostatistician at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), told Medscape Medical News. “It is thought that information is initially collected through the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices, passes to the entorhinal cortex, and ultimately reaches the hippocampal formation. In addition to funneling information to the hippocampus, the subregions of the parahippocampus are also implicated in some information processing on their own,” she added.
“So the finding that sitting reduces the thickness of these important structures is relevant because it suggests that reducing sedentary behavior may be a possible target for interventions designed to improve brain health in middle-aged and older adults.” “It has been said that ‘Sitting is the new smoking’ in relation to general health,” said senior study author, David A Merrill, MD, PhD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences in the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at UCLA. “These findings show a ‘brain effect’ of sitting on a critical memory center of the brain. Our hope is that the findings inspire healthy brain habits, at home and work, like taking a 5-minute break to stand up and walk around every 30 to 60 minutes,” he said.
The study was published online April 12 in PLOS ONE.
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