A new study has found that age-related differences in brain health — specifically the strength of connections between different regions of the brain — vary with fitness level in older adults.
The findings, reported in the journal NeuroImage, suggest that greater cardiorespiratory fitness relates to stronger brain connections and likely improves long-term brain function as we age.
“Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that fitness in an older adult population can have substantial benefits to brain health in terms of the functional connections of different regions of the brain,” said Arthur Kramer, director of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois.
There are many ways to measure brain health during our lives. One popular technique measures the strength of connections between different parts of the brain while the person is completing a task or during wakeful rest, known as resting-state functional connectivity. Research has shown that some of these connections weaken with increasing age and indicate deteriorating brain health, the researchers note.
[For more of this story, written by Janice Wood, go to http://psychcentral.com/news/2...er-adults/94520.html]
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