Inactivity disrupts the work of the vasomotor center
Sedentary life changes the brain
Then suddenly everything changed. Scientists have seen that the brain changes all its life, and even how: new cells are formed, and nerve chains then disintegrate, then fold again, rebuilding their synapses. And these changes can be observed not only at the cellular level, but also at the level of large brain zones that change activity, density of connections with other zones, etc.
The factors that change the brain rushed to investigate intensively. One of these factors was physical exercise: the ancients, as it turned out, were more than right when talking about a healthy mind in a healthy body. It was possible, for example, to find out that physical exercise helps the brain to fight old age; in addition, researchers finally understood why exercise relieves stress.
However, in most cases, scientists were attracted by the relationship between exercise and the state of the brain. At the same time, few people have thought about how a sedentary lifestyle affects the brain (and whether it affects at all). The study by Patrick Mueller and his colleagues from Wayne State University in Michigan (USA) is one of the few works on this topic. The experiment was carried out with rats: some of the animals were put in a cage with a squirrel wheel, in which they wound up for three miles a day, some in a cage where the animals were prescribed to lead a sedentary, "sedentary" life.
Three months later, the researchers assessed the condition of neurons in the rostral ventrolateral region of the medulla oblongata in rats. This zone is responsible for regulating respiration and blood pressure, it commands the walls of blood vessels to relax or contract. It is thanks to the rostral ventrolateral region that an animal can suddenly take off if there is a threat of attack: regulatory neurons will ensure proper functioning of blood vessels and lungs. (This area performs the same functions in humans, so here, as an analogy, we can cite the situation when we jump up from the table in response to the call of the authorities.)
According to the authors of the paper in the Journal of Comparative Neurology (Mischel et al., Physical (in)activity-dependent structural plasticity in bulbospinal catecholaminergic neurons of rat rostral ventrolateral medulla), in rats that regularly ran, the neurons in the aforementioned brain region were the same as before the experiment. But for those who were forced to be lazy, these same neurons looked different: they had additional branches. The more the processes of a neuron branch, the more impulses it can collect from its neighbors.
Such changes make the neuron more sensitive, it begins to respond to stimuli that should not be reacted to. This leads to the fact that the centers of regulation in the medulla oblongata are overstimulated: they begin to load the blood vessels with commands, and as a result, the vascular walls will contract and relax too often, very strongly or unnecessarily weakly (the specific effect, I think, depends on specific changes in neurons). And this behavior of blood vessels is a direct road to heart disease.
It turns out that a sedentary life harms the cardiovascular system also because it modifies the neural circuits in the brain synaptic centers that control the vessels. However, it is worth noting that the authors of the work themselves have so far only stated changes in neurons, and whether this will affect (and how exactly it will affect) the state of the heart of rats, it is still necessary to check, preferably supporting future results with impressive statistics.
But, one way or another, our (rat) endless sitting really changes the neuroanatomy of the brain – and who knows, maybe these changes also affect the centers of higher nervous activity.
Prepared by the New York Times: How Inactivity Changes the Brain.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru24.01.2014