While the cognitive benefits of exercise have been well-documented in research for years, a recent study suggests that grandfathers who improve their cognitive health through exercise may pass those benefits on to future generations.
The research was published Journal of NeuroscienceIt builds on past findings that cognitive improvements from physical exercise can be passed on from parents to their children. The next step for the scientists was to see if the same phenomenon could be observed in offspring two generations after exercise improved cognitive function.
“We set out to investigate whether these improvements would spread across generations and whether they would have an impact [grandchildren]The researchers wrote in the study:
To do this, the team studied the behavior of second-generation male mice whose grandfathers exercised, as opposed to a sedentary control group. The researchers found that the cognitive boosts that grandfathers got from exercising were similarly seen in their grandchildren.
“Our findings revealed that: [second-generation] physically active mice [grandfathers] They exhibited significantly improved memory recall covering both spatial and non-spatial information compared to those who were sedentary [grandfathers]They said, “This is[es] “For the first time, cognitive improvement from physical exercise has been shown to be transmitted from generation to generation.”
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More research is needed on this phenomenon, at least by including female mice rather than focusing on males and their grandchildren to determine whether these cognitive benefits can be transferred from grandmothers to grandchildren. Eventually, studies involving human test subjects could confirm these findings in humans and rodents.