The Topic
"The evidence of the use of exercise [for the management of depression] is substantial and growing fast," writes Felipe Barretto Schuch, from the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria in Brazil, and Brendon Stubbs, from King's College London in the United Kingdom in a recent edition of Current Sports Medicine.
Our Expert's Take
In 2011, the University of Pittsburgh’s Kirk Erickson helped confirm that the human hippocampus — critical for memory formation and known to deteriorate with age — actually bulked up in older adults who dedicated themselves to a regiment of moderate walking over the course of a year. He and colleagues are now using a $22 million National Institutes of Health grant to study the mechanisms of how and how much exercise bulk up the brain.