Moving Your Body Stimulates Energy in the Brain

It's not exactly a secret that moving our bodies and being physically active is a good thing. Over 2500 years ago, Plato said, "Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” In recent years science has revealed a lot about why that is so, especially how physical exertion benefits many organ systems. Some recent ideas reveal that physical exercise actually gives your brain an energy boost.

Hormones Connect Everything

The human bloodstream is awash in hormones as part of the endocrine system. These hormones mediate function in just about every system you can think of, including important connections between muscle and brain. Hormones are particularly useful for signaling as they are markers of functional activity across the entire body.

But until recently, there wasn't a really good understanding of how to categorize, consider and appreciate how signaling from the tissue most active during movement–your muscles–and the bit calling forth the action itself–your brain.

Enter the Exerkine

Endocrine signaling from peripheral systems, such as skeletal muscle, as well as organ systems related to providing the energy of activity, such as the liver and adipose tissue, mediate the effects of exercise on your brain. This led some scientists to advocate calling this exertional mode of hormonal activity "exerkines".

Exerkines from the liver, fat tissue, and active skeletal muscle are now known to directly impact mitochondrial function–our cellular energy transformers–in the brain. In a recent review Junwon Heo, Emily Noble, and Jarrod Call from the University of Georgia summarized the scientific evidence about exerkines and activity.

Mighty Mitochondria in the Mind

These researchers and I will be upfront here about the cool link to the quote from the famous Greek philosopher Plato and the fact that they are from Athens (Georgia, but still), pointing out that "the activity of mitochondria plays a pivotal role in regulating neuronal energy metabolism, neurotransmission, cell repair, and maintenance in the brain." They suggest that the benefit of activity on cognitive function and potential resistance to disease and degradation may come from exerkines "may act via impacting brain mitochondria to improve brain function."

All of this makes a great deal of sense from the perspective of integrative physiology. Animals and we humans are just fancy versions of our pets and are meant to move. And moving around activates cascades and generates hormonal and neural signals that connect cellular systems across the body and brain. That movement affects the mind through the activity of mitochondria is just the latest example of our improved scientific understanding of how human animals function.

Once again, the message is to get out and move about. Being active is good for the body, brain, mitochondria, and mind.

(c) E. Paul Zehr (2023)