Dear Parents and Friends,
At Seoul Foreign School, we are committed to Holistic Education, one in which we educate the whole person- mind, body and spirit. One of our strategic objectives is to raise the level of Holistic Education happening at our school. So, when I saw several articles on the relationship of brain development and exercise, I was interested.
A recent article in the New York Times traces the connection between exercise and brain function. In the late 1990s, Dr. Fred Gage of the Salk Institute in San Diego, elegantly proved that the brains of humans and other animals produced new brain cells (neurogenesis) and that exercise increases this process. Reporter Gretchen Reynolds writes, “The brains of mice and rats that were allowed to run on wheels pulsed with vigorous, newly born neurons, and those animals then breezed through mazes and other tests of rodent I.Q., showing that neurogenesis improves thinking.”
More recently, Dr. Gage has published new information on the mechanisms that provides new information on how exercise remolds and forms the brain. At the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, scientists have found that mice, given access to running wheels, produce a notable increase in Noggin, a brain protein that counteracts the deleterious effect of other natural brain proteins, known to slow down brain function.
Dr. Jack Kessler, Chairman of neurology at Northwestern, writes, “Mice at Northwestern whose brains were infused directly with large doses of Noggin became little mouse geniuses, if there is such a thing.” He indicated that they “aced the mazes and other tests of mouse I.Q.” Further he writes, “If ever exercise enthusiasts wanted a rationale for what they’re doing, this should be it.” He says exercise helps to ensure that neuronal stem cells stay lively and that new brain cells are born.
In a related article, reporter Gretchen Reynolds wrote, “21 students at the University of Illinois were asked to memorize a string of letters and then pick them out from a list flashed at them. Then they were asked to do one of three things for 30 minutes-sit quietly, run on a treadmill or lift weights- before performing the letter test again. After an additional 30- minute cool down, they were tested once more. On subsequent days, the students returned to try the other two options. The students were noticeable quicker and more accurate on the retest after they ran compared with the other two options, and they continued to perform better when tested after the cool down.”
Can Exercise Make Kids Smarter?
While all these tests and experiments are interesting and suggest that exercise is important to the development of immature brains, they are non-conclusive. This led me to a third article on the relationship between exercise and brain development. Researchers at the University of Illinois studied schoolchildren, ages 9 and 10. They asked the children to run on a treadmill, hoping to learn more about how fitness affects the immature human brain. What they found was amazing.
Based upon their treadmill runs, researchers divided the students into groups according to fitness- highest, median and lowest fit categories. Then, they were asked to complete a series of cognitive tests to see how well the children filtered out unnecessary information and attended to relevant clues. In this case, as in many previous ones, children who were better fit generally scored better on the tests. However, these reserachers went one step further. Using MRI methods they measured the size of the basal ganglia, where the “executive function” of the brain is located. It is the part of the brain that aids in maintaining attention and the ability to coordinate actions and thoughts crisply. Reporter Gretchen Reynolds wrote, “Since both groups of children had similar socioeconomic backgrounds, body mass index and other variables, the researchers concluded that being fit had enlarged that portion of their brains.”
In a similar study, researchers also determined that fitter children had larger hippocampi, the portion of the brain that focuses on complex memory. Together these studies indicated that fitter children in these studies had more capacity to do the most intricate thinking.
Finally, in a well-known Swedish study among over a million 18 year old boys, better fitness was correlated with higher I.Q.’s, even among identical twins. The fittest of the subjects were found more likely to be successful in their careers. Interestingly, no correlation was found between muscular strength and I.Q.; it appears only aerobic exercise leads to the kind of fitness connected with more brain development and higher I.Q.
The important take-home lessons for us are obvious. We must encourage our children to continue their regular aerobic activity throughout their school lives at SFS since we now know the important connection between this kind of activity and brain function. Sports are important for building leadership, cooperation, teamwork and just “letting off steam,” but we must remember the absolutely critical function they play in cognitive development in our students. Just one more important reason for educating the “Whole Child!”
I would be interested in your thoughts on this blog. Please reply by clicking on “Leave a Comment” just below.
See you on the track!
John
School Head's Blog 