|
|
A new study says that exercise can help in the improvement of memory and mood in a person who has undergone whole-brain radiation for brain cancer.
"This is the first demonstration that exercise can prevent a decline in memory after whole-brain radiation treatment," said lead researcher Sarah Wong-Goodrich of Duke University.
"We found that exercise following radiation prevented a decline in erasable memory in mice and this is analogous to the type of memory problems people have after whole-brain radiation for brain tumours," said senior co-author Christina Williams, Duke professor of psychology and neuroscience.
"This is the type of short-term memory people use to find their car after they have parked it in a large lot. After radiation, this type of memory becomes impaired in many people," she said.
"It was remarkable that the irradiated, running mice were just like the normal, non-irradiated mice that didn't exercise," said Wong-Goodrich, who conducted the experiments in the Williams' lab. "We were expecting some memory retention issues with a longer delay and there weren't any."
According to Wong-Goodrich, exercise can prevent the loss of memory as well as prevent behaviours similar to depression.
Tests were conducted on mice for behaviours similar to depression by means of gentle restraints, which they used as means of escapades. The irradiated mice gave up at a rate faster than normal mice, after a period of two weeks.
Three months after radiation, the runners that had brain radiation, however, tried just as hard as the normal mice, while their non-running counterparts gave up more readily, said a Duke release.
Study author Lee W. Jones, professor of radiation oncology at Duke said the findings show "how powerful exercise is and how many benefits it can provide, and even restore, after radiation."
