10.2 The Brain and Body Interaction

The study of neuroscience has taught us that the brain is an extremely complicated organ with trillions of connections throughout the body. Some of those connections communicate information down towards the body, such as signals that allow us to produce movement by instructing our skeletal muscles (Chapter 5.3) to contract in a sequential and coordinated manner. Other connections ascend into the brain, conveying all sorts of information from the world around us, such as how hot or cold our environment is, the sounds we hear at any given time, how hungry we are, and where body parts are in relation to others.

The nervous system conveys all this information using a combination of electrical and chemical signals that allow us to function by receiving information and facilitating activities of daily living.

Exercise Neuroscience is a much newer field of study that is growing quite rapidly. It is a subdomain of neuroscience that seeks to further understand how movement, physical activity, and exercise work to influence the nervous system and vice versa.

In this video, the narrator explains how exercise affects the brain by highlighting three key mechanisms of action:

1. Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, allowing for increased nutrients and metabolites to enter the brain and fulfill its metabolic demands.
2. Exercise aids in memory storage and formation by increasing certain molecules within the brain (i.e., Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor or BDNF).
3. Exercise mitigates stress by stimulating endorphin release and lowering cortisol levels.

“What is Neuroscience?” from Principles of Biology by Catherine Creech is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.