Health

Work your mind
by Claudia Sonea

Mens sana in corpore sano says a Latin proverb revealing that mind and body are connected and in order to have a healthy mind you must have a healthy body. Until now nothing new, it's a cliché used by many sports people. However, it has become a scientific matter after a study published in the journal Nature Medicine on Sunday. For the new study researchers have used a tool called microarray that examined the effect of exercise on gene activity in the brains of mice. The brain area targeted was the hippocampus, which has been implicated in mood regulation and in the brain's response to antidepressant medication. As a result the mice that worked out on a running wheel for a week showed altered activity in a total of 33 genes, the majority of which had never been identified before. The exercise increased the activity especially of a nerve growth factor known as VGF and when a synthetic version of it was introduced in the brains of mice, a "robust antidepressant effect" was produced to animals placed in stressful situations. Senior researcher Dr. Ronald S. Duman of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, stated to Reuters Health that the results can significantly improve the development of novel therapeutic agents and also reflect a direct effect of exercise on nerve cells in the hippocampus, or more general changes in the brain, like better blood flow or increased hormonal activity. All in all, exercise seems to increase the production of naturally occurring brain chemical with antidepressant effects and the new study offers new means to treat depression in people. Furthermore, due to the study VGF became a target for new antidepressants, according to Duman and his colleagues. Don't go away, medicine has more to reveal.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071203/hl_nm/natural_antidepressant_dc;_ylt=Ags0kHeK619RmtQYV8yvUUis0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 7:26 PM