Exercise may boost brain's natural antidepressant
Exercise seems to increase the production of naturally occurring brain chemical with antidepressant effects in mice, researchers reported.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, point to potential new ways to treat depression in people.
Studies have found that exercise can help ease depression symptoms, but the reasons for the benefit have not been clear. For the new study, scientists used a tool called a microarray to examine how exercise changed gene activity in the brains of mice.
They focused on a brain region known as the hippocampus, which has been implicated in mood regulation and in the brain's response to antidepressant medication.
"The major finding is that we have identified a key factor that underlies the antidepressant effects of exercise — information that could be used for the development of novel therapeutic agents," said senior researcher Dr. Ronald S. Duman of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Exercise "clearly has effects on the brain," he told, and they are both direct and indirect. It's possible, he explained, that the current findings 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.
Source: Nature Medicine, online
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