An important finding in the field of neuroscience has been to be able to demonstrate that aerobic physical exercise has an important positive effect on the brain and learning capacity. However, it seems not to be the only type of exercise beneficial for our cognitive abilities. A team from Marquette University in the United States has found that a simple isometric exercise can significantly improve memory in older people .
Based on the assumption that events that activate us are remembered better than mundane ones, these researchers decided to manipulate the activation of participants in a memory experiment through a muscle tension exercise. A total of 47 healthy older people collaborated in their study, who were evaluated for verbal and visual memory through two common neuropsychological tests (learning texts and retention of images and figures). Immediately after learning the texts and drawings, a subgroup of participants were asked to do one minute of exercise with a small latex ball filled with sand. The other subgroup of participants did nothing else.
The results, published in Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (2014), indicate that the people who performed the muscle tension exercises had a better memory of the information two weeks later , in relation to a higher level of arousal or activation caused by the exercise physical. According to the authors, this finding is in addition to previous ones about the modulating effect of muscle tension exercises on memory consolidation processes.
Marisa Fernández, Senior Neuropsychologist, Unobrain
