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"Running increases the genesis and survival of new cells in the hippocampus, a region important for learning and memory."

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The same team of Duke University Medical Center researchers who concluded in 1999 that aerobic exercise proves as effective as medication in treating depression in older adults has recently published another article on physical activity. In the January 2000 issue of the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, this team reported on their study in which the effects of a structured exercise program on cognitive functioning were measured. Using the same pool of adults from the 1999 study—a group with a mean age of 57 years—the researchers found that aerobic exercise, in addition to warding off depression, also improved cognitive functioning.

"Add to this a number of recent studies completed at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, investigating the role of exercise—in particular, running—on cell growth in lab animals. "Running increases the genesis and survival of new cells in the hippocampus, a region important for learning and memory," says Dr. Henriette Van Praag, part of the Salk Institute team working on this problem. And these mice indeed performed better on spatial learning tasks when compared to sedentary control mice."

And at Arizona State University, Dr. Debbie Crews, an assistant research professor of exercise science who works largely with special needs and minority teenage populations, has been attempting to improve both behavioral problems and cognitive functioning of these kids through a number of physical activities, including golf, horse riding, and archery. Crews is examining the effects of these activities on, among other things, self-esteem, depression, reaction time, and other facets of personality and cognitive functioning.

What she's found is that there is some improvement, though the results have been very dependent on the coupling of the activity with the population. “In different activities and populations,” she says, “the results vary. It's like you would go to a gym and get a physical conditioning program, but you would get a different one depending on whether you wanted to lose weight or run a marathon.”

In a central Phoenix fourth grade class composed mostly of Hispanic children, Crews and her colleagues ran a study in which the class was divided into two groups: one participated in an aerobic exercise program and that the other participated in a physical activity program. Each group met three days a week for six weeks. In the aerobic program, instructors tried to keep the children's' heart rate above 140 beats/minute. In the physical activity group, they kept the heart rate below 140 beats/minute.