00:00:00
Krutika Adatia: Hello and welcome back to On Your Marks from ACCA. I'm Krutika Adatia and I'm a chartered accountant. I now support accountancy students through their training. And as an educator, I'm regularly up close and personal with some of the common issues people face while studying for and sitting their accountancy exams. So in this series for ACCA, I'm chatting to experts about strategies we can all use when facing some of life's challenges. This week we're looking at exercise. Some of us love it, some of us hate it, but we all know that when we're busy or stressed, it's really easy to let exercise fall by the wayside, even when we know it's good for us. So how does exercising our bodies affect our brains? How can it actually make learning easier and what can we all do to ensure we're getting the benefits? This is On Your Marks because you'll never know until you try.
I came to exercise perhaps a little later than some. It wasn't really part of how I grew up and I often dismissed it. Maybe that was down to my environment or growing up in an Indian family where comments about exercise were sometimes casually tied to weight rather than wellbeing. But in my 30s, something shifted. I started to approach exercise differently and since making it a regular part of my life, I've been genuinely surprised by the impact, not just physically but mentally too, including my mood, my focus and my overall sense of wellbeing. So this is something I've become really curious about.
What exercise actually does for us beyond the surface level narratives that we often hear and that's why I'm really excited to have this conversation with Sandrine Thuret. Sandrine is a professor of neuroscience at King's College London and she's fascinated by how exercise affects our brains.
So Sandrine, let's start with the basics. What is happening in our brains when we are exercising?
00:02:15
Sandrine Thuret: So there's a lot of things that are happening in our brain. I would say what people are mostly aware of or have read about is these endorphin feelings after the exercise, how you feel good and happy about your achievement. What we are studying in my research lab is more the longer term effect of the exercise, continuous effect. And one of the thing that exercise does is that it increase production of new neurons, which we call neurogenesis.
00:02:45
Krutika Adatia: Oh, wow. And that is something that certainly I'd like to hear more about. I mean, what are some of the benefits of this neurogenesis?
00:02:52
Sandrine Thuret: So yeah, this neurogenesis, so producing new neuron is quite important. I mean first, obviously we thought that this is not existing for a very long time. We thought that once you are grown up, you have made all the number of neurons that you have and you can't make anymore. However, we another to discover that you can produce new neurons in the hippocampus, which is important for learning and memory and mood and emotion. And over many years to probably 20 years of research, now we have learned that these adult- borne neurons are important for learning and memory and then mood and emotion. So they are quite key players and that's why you should promote the production of this new neuron through your entire life.
00:03:41
Krutika Adatia: Amazing. So what I'm hearing you say is that we exercise, we feel good, it produces new neurons. It's doing this in the hippocampus where the learning takes place. So that sounds like great news for our students, right? We should be doing more of it.
00:03:56
Sandrine Thuret: Yes, absolutely. So indeed they are really important for learning and memory and they are important for specific task or specific type of learning. So one is spatial recognition. So you need this new neuron for finding new ways. So that's useful for everyone. But I think one might be particularly interesting for your student is that these neuron are important for what we call pattern separation. So it's the ability we have to distinguish similar memories. So let's say if we give an example of people that are maybe in the US, you have this big parking lot structure, right? They park their car in one spot, maybe same car, same floor every day, but slightly a different spot.
However, if all goes well, you will find back your car although it's a slightly different spot. So this is this pattern separation, how you distinguish very similar memory. So reflecting on the work your students are doing, they have to bring on this patent separation a lot, distinguishing very similar set of data, I guess coming across all of these spreadsheets, I could imagine that patent separation is very important. And then these other born neuron are these specific tasks to help you do that.
00:05:13
Krutika Adatia: Oh, wow. That's amazing because that's making me think that with the ACCA exams, they often link to one another as well. So if they've covered something before, then there's a way that it can then come up in another exam in a slightly more detailed way or maybe a slightly different way. So what we're saying is that actually the neurons that are created through exercising could potentially help or support that.
00:05:38
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, absolutely. So exercise is one way you can create this neuron and we can maybe discuss later. There's other way for people maybe who don't like exercise, how you can create this new neuron. But yeah, they are a key layer in that. And so unfortunately we know that the production of this new neuron stay throughout life, but it goes down slightly as we get older. So, but you could try to compensate that with some activity that are going to promote the production of this new neuron. And we know that this ability to do pattern separation as well goes down with aging. That kind of mimic the production of new neurons. So there's quite a lot of evidence that they are important for that.
00:06:20
Krutika Adatia: So you mentioned the evidence. How do we know that this is actually happening in our brains?
00:06:25
Sandrine Thuret: So very good question. So all started with animal mouse studies. So this concept of neurogenesis is conserved throughout mammalian spaces. So to understand really the role at the molecular and cellular level, it's important to have these kind of models. And this is how it was discovered very important for learning, mood and emotion, because we could see all these differences in animal model. Now in the human, we know this does exist with postmortem studies. So we see in brain of people who have died, unfortunately, we can detect them and we can see that's why in depression in people who have suffered from depression and we can see that they have a lower level of neurogenesis, people who have dementia or Alzheimer's disease have lower level of neurogenesis. So we can see this is there, this is existing and it is modulated with age, but you can compensate with activity, but also it disturbing certain disorders and disease.
00:07:29
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. Actually, when I think about exercise, I started with cardio first and I started doing Zumba because I was like, " That doesn't feel like exercise to me." And then I've also added strength to it as well because I kept seeing in mainstream media and the content graders that I follow that you've got to add some strength training in as well. So my question to you is, does it really matter whether you're doing cardio or strength to get this kind of neurogenesis benefits that you're outlining here?
00:07:59
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, that's a really good question. So from the earlier data, so animal model data, for example, mice love running naturally. So you give them access to a running wheel and they will run, run, run, run, run like up to 14 kilometers per night. So they are nocturnal. Human, we are not going to run that far proportionally, but a lot of the human studies thought, okay, let's do cardio work. However, in our latest trial, we did a focus group with participant who did not exercise before. So we thought it was important to get their opinion before we design a study to see what type of exercise would people stick to and enjoy doing. And the people who didn't exercise, they explained to us that the reason they don't exercise was, well, it's boring. And you trying Zumba because it's more exciting, right? There's music and it's monotonous.
They don't want to be on a stationary bike. They don't want to be on a treadmill. So they want something varied and also it's about time, right? Time management. So we designed a trial where indeed we mix cardio and strength. So it was an intervention three times a week, 30 minutes with live trainer, but online though. So people could do it at home. So we didn't have to go to a gym, but they had someone live online to tell them and push them. And it was like in a group so you could see other people on Zoom. And so we did one cardio, one strength, and then one basically hybrid mix of both. And people really enjoyed it. It was three months and 90% of the people stuck with it. And I think it was about the variety of the exercise. And then so when we tested then via memory and mood, we saw a nice improvement on mood.
Memory was a lot more variable across individual. We had people that really responded well, some people not so well. So now at the research level, we are trying to understand why some people respond better than others, but everyone improved their mood basically, which was really nice. And most of the people really stuck to the program, which I think show that you should do an exercise that you like.
Don't force yourself in doing something that you don't like. So choose an exercise that yours because we think that whatever exercise it is, it will produce this effect, meaning increase blood flow. So by increasing blood flow, potentially you have what we call this growth factor that are in your blood that will reach out the brain and this pushes these cells in hippocampus to then become neurons and do their job.
00:10:45
Krutika Adatia: Can I just ask you, which exercise do you prefer?
00:10:48
Sandrine Thuret: I think as a convenience, I like running myself. When I was younger, not. I would play sports game like basketball or handball or something that was a little bit more exciting. But as you get older and have a busy work, a family, I find running very convenient because you just need your pair of shoes, like your outfit and then you go. I like swimming, but it's time- consuming. I think it's a matter of, I'm sure your students are working hard. So it's a matter of them finding what fits in their life as well. So something you like and that fits and then maybe something in the middle.
00:11:31
Krutika Adatia: Just circling back to exercise specifically itself and the benefits of neurogenesis, why have we evolved that way, do you think?
00:11:40
Sandrine Thuret: So yeah, that's an interesting question. So I mentioned it's conserve in all mammalian species and very specifically in the hippocampus. So we don't have neurogenesis in the other part of the brain and hippocampus is important for learning and memory and mood and emotion. So we could wonder why do we have the production of neuron just there. So obviously on obvious explanation is that, well, we need to continue to learn throughout life. So that's one aspect. Now, how is it related to mood and emotion? It might just be purely anatomical because hippocampus is a little crescent shape where you have a top and bottom part and then the top or what we call the dorsal part is important for learning and memory and the bottom part for mood and emotion. And you have this neurogenesis happening throughout. So whatever, if you have more new neuron in one area, it will affect the other one.
So evolutionary is tricky to explain, but definitely the need of continuous learning would explain why we still have new neurons in this area. Now, why exercise is something that affects that? It's probably a lot to deal with body mind interaction where whatever we are doing, eating or doing and you have an increased blood flow, then it will affect your brain, definitely. And hippocampus is highly vascularized, so there's loads of blood vessel there. So we think there's a lot of component from nutrient or growth factor that you increase when you exercise that will reach these cells or stem cells that produce these new neurons.
00:13:21
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. Now earlier you mentioned that you can get neurogenesis benefits if you don't like exercise. So could I just circle back to that point because it feels appropriate. I mean, I've asked you what you like, but I'm sure our listeners are thinking, " Yeah, don't like strength. I don't like cardio." What can they do?
00:13:36
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, if you really don't like exercise, then I think indeed from first I thought like, is this true? Are they people that really don't like exercise and don't find there are any benefits for them? And then after our study, I mean, I had data in front of me and then I said, " Okay, now I believe my brother who does not like exercising." And every time I'm like, " What do you mean you don't like? Surely you feel good after." I said, " No, I don't." And now we are trying to dissect what are the interaction maybe into, is it genetic or is it different interaction with that? So luckily this process of neurogenesis, you can modulate it by not just exercise but diet definitely is one of them. So we and others have shown that there are specific diet that will push neurogenesis and production of new neurons such as omega- free fatty acids increase neurogenesis, which is contained in fatty fish like a small piece of salmon like 100 gram every day on average will increase neurogenesis probably as much as going for a run, we'll say proportionally.
And then learning itself increase neurogenesis, which is really cool for your student, I guess, because they are revising, they are learning. So learning itself will increase neurogenesis. So you have this loop as well that you can foster. Obviously sleep as well is a big one where we rather have shown that actually sleep deprivation is decreasing neurogenesis, stress is decreasing neurogenesis. So basically balancing all that if you achieve some kind of a slightly positive slope with the good thing is good because we know that if you are revising probably you will sleep less and you will be a bit more stressed. So then if you are eating well and maybe exercising, that's a good one.
00:15:37
Krutika Adatia: You can balance out the kind of effects, right?
00:15:40
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, exactly.
00:15:40
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. And it's so great that you've mentioned sleep, nutrition, and learning, because we've got episodes and all of those on our series. Excellent. It's great for our listeners that it kind of all ties into one another.
00:15:52
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah. Molecular, cellular neurobiology level, sleep, stress, all of that and nutrition exercise will affect the production of new neurons.
00:16:02
Krutika Adatia: I see. Now of course we've spoken about the kind of benefits to learning and memory for certainly the short term, but what are the sort of benefits also long term by doing sustained periods of exercise and making it a habitual thing, for example?
00:16:18
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah. So I think, well, we didn't discuss a small detail of how long it takes to make a new neuron, but it's going to take to go from... So they are born from this neural stem cells that you have in the hippocampus and they are quite some meaning they are quiet, they will not divide, are not going to produce any neurons. But when they start, when they get the good stuff, it will take between probably eight to 10 weeks to go from a neural stem cell that does not have yet a function to become a neuron that is going to connect with the rest of the brain. So if you have this sustained activity, you are maintaining this flow of newborn neuron to be generated while obviously if it's just a one- off, once in a while, you might have a little burst and then nothing because it will take time to build this pool of cells that you are going to produce neurons that integrate your network and do their job basically.
00:17:21
Krutika Adatia: Right. I see. So you almost have to do sustained longer periods of exercise to reap the benefits of it. It can't just be like you're saying, a workout here, wait three months, do another workout, it's got to be more.
00:17:35
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, it is better to have this sustained effect. Of course, we did talk at the start about this effect of this under thin release, it just makes you feel good after and that might have beneficial effect on its own, right? But when we talk about neurogenesis, this is more a sustained effect long term.
00:17:55
Krutika Adatia: And you've just mentioned mood. Actually, I want to dig into that a little bit more. I mean, how is it that exercise is helping to improve our mood? And we know for instance, our students can be really stressed. So when you're stressed, you may not intuitively think to go to exercise, but I know as well, since I've started doing exercise, I noticed the change in my mood. So talk to us a little bit more about that mood impact on the side.
00:18:20
Sandrine Thuret: So we have a lot of study on the aspect of mood and exercise and neurogenesis. So basically, I mentioned the anatomy of the hippocampus, so this ventral part that's really important for mood regulation and you have neurogenesis there as well and some colleague in Colombia have shown more than 25 years ago in animal model that if you block neurogenesis in mouse model, basically so you induce almost depressive effect and we see the same if you induce stress, you are going to decrease neurogenesis and induce depressive- like behavior.
But what they did there back then is that actually they block the ability to make new neuron, which you can do with some drugs. And then what they could see is that then if you try to give antidepressant to the mice, the antidepressant wouldn't work. So not all antidepressant would work this way, but some will be working this way. So that's why exercise on its own or anything that would improve neurogenesis will have this antidepressant- like effect if you want.
00:19:29
Krutika Adatia: Ah, so it's almost like when our students are stressed, they almost need to do the exercise and get out and do stuff. Even if it's a walk, would a walk-
00:19:37
Sandrine Thuret: Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Anything that we think that is going to increase heart rate, so then stimulate blood flow and preferably is enjoyable. So even if during COVID, one of my kid really got off, you couldn't do anything much and I was worried for them. So we're lucky enough to come up on a treadmill that we put in our backyard, courtyard.
00:20:05
Krutika Adatia: I love it.
00:20:05
Sandrine Thuret: And then for kids, going on the treadmill is useless. So then I just put a little cartoon on his iPad, stuck on the treadmill and then do what works for you. If you listen to your favorite podcast, if you want to go for a run or a walk. Worse to come, if you're like, " You know what? I'm more a visual person. I'm going to watch my favorite TV show at the gym while on the treadmill works as well."
00:20:34
Krutika Adatia: Yeah, I love that. Go for a walk, listen to On Your Marks whilst you're on your walk. Yeah. Dual benefits there.
00:20:37
Sandrine Thuret: Yes, yes.
00:20:40
Krutika Adatia: Love that. So actually let's get really real, I suppose. How much exercise do we actually need to be doing to reap the benefits? So could I say if I just go for a 10- minute walk, I'm going to reap the benefits of some of the things that you've described or does it need to be longer? What are your views on that?
00:20:59
Sandrine Thuret: Well, from our own data, what I can say is that we did from the intervention, so a proper trial where you have all the proper control, we see that we have efficacy three times a week for 30 minutes. So it is doable and the way we had structure it is that we are offering people to say people busy, they could choose between doing it early morning during their lunch break or in the evening. So it didn't matter when they were doing it, but as long as they were consistent to do that three times a week. So that's what we can say from our study. We think that would be the minimum where we have shown benefits.
00:21:45
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. So 30 minutes, three times a week , but consistency.
00:21:50
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah.
00:21:51
Krutika Adatia: I kind of want to just understand from you, is there also a preferred time of day or does it boil down to personal preference?
00:21:59
Sandrine Thuret: I think people have to try and see what they like best. I have a colleague who works on, basically it's more like a chronobiology and they find out indeed that some people have clear preferences when they enjoy exercising. So I think people should try and then realize, well, actually it works better for me in the morning or in the evening or during the day they can. Equally, it might be driven by what works in their busy life, but trying out both, I think like you, they will find out which one they preferred. I also suspect from personal experience, I suspect as well it's age as well aspect. I think when I was younger, I would like to exercise late at night better, but now I'm like you, I prefer to do it early morning. So things might change actually according to your life stages as well.
So people have to try it and see what works better, but we didn't find a relation between efficacy and when the people were doing their classes. If you have the choice, then what do you like best?
00:23:09
Krutika Adatia: So there's no real scientific evidence or studies that back up at preferred time of day, I suppose.
00:23:13
Sandrine Thuret: No, we didn't find statistically significance between when people would take the classes.
00:23:21
Krutika Adatia: You have shared so many golden nuggets through this conversation and I've certainly picked up a few things for myself, but just in terms of wrapping up, I mean, Sandrine, what would be your three top tips for exercising to get benefits for the brain?
00:23:36
Sandrine Thuret: I think we touch upon quite a few already. I would say find an exercise that you enjoy. I think that's the number one because no one want to be pushed to do something they don't like. If it stresses you to think about doing this exercise, then it's kind of lose out the benefit, I think. So if you try to find a type of exercise that you enjoy, or if you're older, you used to play sports game, maybe join again a team, something like that. So I think that would be the number one. Number two would be, I know we are all busy and trying to fit time in your life or exercising is very difficult.
So I think this is a tricky one, but think about the benefit we have discussed and then said, " Okay, can I spare 30 minutes today for myself for my brain or think about the long term?" Because we haven't discussed it yet, or we don't have time maybe to discuss it, but it is protective against dementia. So even if you are super young, or I would say even if you are in your early 30s, what you are doing now will have an impact when you are 70.
So I would say try to say to motivate yourself, think about the long- term benefits like, oh, I don't have time today for this 30 minutes, but do you really? Can you find maybe twice 15 minutes maybe morning and evening, worse to come, you could do that. And then the last one, what would be the last one? If you find within your family, your partner, convince them to join you, it might help because then you start motivating each other to say it, " Okay, let's do that together, let's go together." Yeah. So that would be my third one.
00:25:36
Krutika Adatia: And just on that third tip, actually, I must admit, I find myself being a lot more motivated when I'm going to classes rather than having to... Yeah, on days, because obviously Easter has just gone and there were weeks where the classes weren't on. And so when I was trying to then do homework out, I just wasn't finding the motivation as opposed to when you're in class. So thank you so much for sharing that sound dream.
00:26:00
Sandrine Thuret: There is a social aspect as well of exercise that could come into play. So something to keep in mind because yeah, the last one we know as well that social interaction increased neurogenesis. There you go.
00:26:13
Krutika Adatia: Oh, wow.
00:26:14
Sandrine Thuret: Good exercise in group.
00:26:15
Krutika Adatia: Thank you so much, Sandrine. That's been really useful.
00:26:18
Sandrine Thuret: Thank you.
00:26:19
Krutika Adatia: That's it from this episode of On Your Marks. Thank you, Sandrine, for chatting with me today. For more information about ACCA exams, you can go to www. accaglobal. com/ exams and to watch the video version of this podcast, check out the link in the show notes. See you next time. I'm Krutika Adatia and this has been On Your Marks. On Your Marks is a Fresh Air Production for ACCA. Its producers are Eva Higginbotham, Annie Day and Finlay Macrae. It's edited by Helen Quigley.
Krutika Adatia: Hello and welcome back to On Your Marks from ACCA. I'm Krutika Adatia and I'm a chartered accountant. I now support accountancy students through their training. And as an educator, I'm regularly up close and personal with some of the common issues people face while studying for and sitting their accountancy exams. So in this series for ACCA, I'm chatting to experts about strategies we can all use when facing some of life's challenges. This week we're looking at exercise. Some of us love it, some of us hate it, but we all know that when we're busy or stressed, it's really easy to let exercise fall by the wayside, even when we know it's good for us. So how does exercising our bodies affect our brains? How can it actually make learning easier and what can we all do to ensure we're getting the benefits? This is On Your Marks because you'll never know until you try.
I came to exercise perhaps a little later than some. It wasn't really part of how I grew up and I often dismissed it. Maybe that was down to my environment or growing up in an Indian family where comments about exercise were sometimes casually tied to weight rather than wellbeing. But in my 30s, something shifted. I started to approach exercise differently and since making it a regular part of my life, I've been genuinely surprised by the impact, not just physically but mentally too, including my mood, my focus and my overall sense of wellbeing. So this is something I've become really curious about.
What exercise actually does for us beyond the surface level narratives that we often hear and that's why I'm really excited to have this conversation with Sandrine Thuret. Sandrine is a professor of neuroscience at King's College London and she's fascinated by how exercise affects our brains.
So Sandrine, let's start with the basics. What is happening in our brains when we are exercising?
00:02:15
Sandrine Thuret: So there's a lot of things that are happening in our brain. I would say what people are mostly aware of or have read about is these endorphin feelings after the exercise, how you feel good and happy about your achievement. What we are studying in my research lab is more the longer term effect of the exercise, continuous effect. And one of the thing that exercise does is that it increase production of new neurons, which we call neurogenesis.
00:02:45
Krutika Adatia: Oh, wow. And that is something that certainly I'd like to hear more about. I mean, what are some of the benefits of this neurogenesis?
00:02:52
Sandrine Thuret: So yeah, this neurogenesis, so producing new neuron is quite important. I mean first, obviously we thought that this is not existing for a very long time. We thought that once you are grown up, you have made all the number of neurons that you have and you can't make anymore. However, we another to discover that you can produce new neurons in the hippocampus, which is important for learning and memory and mood and emotion. And over many years to probably 20 years of research, now we have learned that these adult- borne neurons are important for learning and memory and then mood and emotion. So they are quite key players and that's why you should promote the production of this new neuron through your entire life.
00:03:41
Krutika Adatia: Amazing. So what I'm hearing you say is that we exercise, we feel good, it produces new neurons. It's doing this in the hippocampus where the learning takes place. So that sounds like great news for our students, right? We should be doing more of it.
00:03:56
Sandrine Thuret: Yes, absolutely. So indeed they are really important for learning and memory and they are important for specific task or specific type of learning. So one is spatial recognition. So you need this new neuron for finding new ways. So that's useful for everyone. But I think one might be particularly interesting for your student is that these neuron are important for what we call pattern separation. So it's the ability we have to distinguish similar memories. So let's say if we give an example of people that are maybe in the US, you have this big parking lot structure, right? They park their car in one spot, maybe same car, same floor every day, but slightly a different spot.
However, if all goes well, you will find back your car although it's a slightly different spot. So this is this pattern separation, how you distinguish very similar memory. So reflecting on the work your students are doing, they have to bring on this patent separation a lot, distinguishing very similar set of data, I guess coming across all of these spreadsheets, I could imagine that patent separation is very important. And then these other born neuron are these specific tasks to help you do that.
00:05:13
Krutika Adatia: Oh, wow. That's amazing because that's making me think that with the ACCA exams, they often link to one another as well. So if they've covered something before, then there's a way that it can then come up in another exam in a slightly more detailed way or maybe a slightly different way. So what we're saying is that actually the neurons that are created through exercising could potentially help or support that.
00:05:38
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, absolutely. So exercise is one way you can create this neuron and we can maybe discuss later. There's other way for people maybe who don't like exercise, how you can create this new neuron. But yeah, they are a key layer in that. And so unfortunately we know that the production of this new neuron stay throughout life, but it goes down slightly as we get older. So, but you could try to compensate that with some activity that are going to promote the production of this new neuron. And we know that this ability to do pattern separation as well goes down with aging. That kind of mimic the production of new neurons. So there's quite a lot of evidence that they are important for that.
00:06:20
Krutika Adatia: So you mentioned the evidence. How do we know that this is actually happening in our brains?
00:06:25
Sandrine Thuret: So very good question. So all started with animal mouse studies. So this concept of neurogenesis is conserved throughout mammalian spaces. So to understand really the role at the molecular and cellular level, it's important to have these kind of models. And this is how it was discovered very important for learning, mood and emotion, because we could see all these differences in animal model. Now in the human, we know this does exist with postmortem studies. So we see in brain of people who have died, unfortunately, we can detect them and we can see that's why in depression in people who have suffered from depression and we can see that they have a lower level of neurogenesis, people who have dementia or Alzheimer's disease have lower level of neurogenesis. So we can see this is there, this is existing and it is modulated with age, but you can compensate with activity, but also it disturbing certain disorders and disease.
00:07:29
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. Actually, when I think about exercise, I started with cardio first and I started doing Zumba because I was like, " That doesn't feel like exercise to me." And then I've also added strength to it as well because I kept seeing in mainstream media and the content graders that I follow that you've got to add some strength training in as well. So my question to you is, does it really matter whether you're doing cardio or strength to get this kind of neurogenesis benefits that you're outlining here?
00:07:59
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, that's a really good question. So from the earlier data, so animal model data, for example, mice love running naturally. So you give them access to a running wheel and they will run, run, run, run, run like up to 14 kilometers per night. So they are nocturnal. Human, we are not going to run that far proportionally, but a lot of the human studies thought, okay, let's do cardio work. However, in our latest trial, we did a focus group with participant who did not exercise before. So we thought it was important to get their opinion before we design a study to see what type of exercise would people stick to and enjoy doing. And the people who didn't exercise, they explained to us that the reason they don't exercise was, well, it's boring. And you trying Zumba because it's more exciting, right? There's music and it's monotonous.
They don't want to be on a stationary bike. They don't want to be on a treadmill. So they want something varied and also it's about time, right? Time management. So we designed a trial where indeed we mix cardio and strength. So it was an intervention three times a week, 30 minutes with live trainer, but online though. So people could do it at home. So we didn't have to go to a gym, but they had someone live online to tell them and push them. And it was like in a group so you could see other people on Zoom. And so we did one cardio, one strength, and then one basically hybrid mix of both. And people really enjoyed it. It was three months and 90% of the people stuck with it. And I think it was about the variety of the exercise. And then so when we tested then via memory and mood, we saw a nice improvement on mood.
Memory was a lot more variable across individual. We had people that really responded well, some people not so well. So now at the research level, we are trying to understand why some people respond better than others, but everyone improved their mood basically, which was really nice. And most of the people really stuck to the program, which I think show that you should do an exercise that you like.
Don't force yourself in doing something that you don't like. So choose an exercise that yours because we think that whatever exercise it is, it will produce this effect, meaning increase blood flow. So by increasing blood flow, potentially you have what we call this growth factor that are in your blood that will reach out the brain and this pushes these cells in hippocampus to then become neurons and do their job.
00:10:45
Krutika Adatia: Can I just ask you, which exercise do you prefer?
00:10:48
Sandrine Thuret: I think as a convenience, I like running myself. When I was younger, not. I would play sports game like basketball or handball or something that was a little bit more exciting. But as you get older and have a busy work, a family, I find running very convenient because you just need your pair of shoes, like your outfit and then you go. I like swimming, but it's time- consuming. I think it's a matter of, I'm sure your students are working hard. So it's a matter of them finding what fits in their life as well. So something you like and that fits and then maybe something in the middle.
00:11:31
Krutika Adatia: Just circling back to exercise specifically itself and the benefits of neurogenesis, why have we evolved that way, do you think?
00:11:40
Sandrine Thuret: So yeah, that's an interesting question. So I mentioned it's conserve in all mammalian species and very specifically in the hippocampus. So we don't have neurogenesis in the other part of the brain and hippocampus is important for learning and memory and mood and emotion. So we could wonder why do we have the production of neuron just there. So obviously on obvious explanation is that, well, we need to continue to learn throughout life. So that's one aspect. Now, how is it related to mood and emotion? It might just be purely anatomical because hippocampus is a little crescent shape where you have a top and bottom part and then the top or what we call the dorsal part is important for learning and memory and the bottom part for mood and emotion. And you have this neurogenesis happening throughout. So whatever, if you have more new neuron in one area, it will affect the other one.
So evolutionary is tricky to explain, but definitely the need of continuous learning would explain why we still have new neurons in this area. Now, why exercise is something that affects that? It's probably a lot to deal with body mind interaction where whatever we are doing, eating or doing and you have an increased blood flow, then it will affect your brain, definitely. And hippocampus is highly vascularized, so there's loads of blood vessel there. So we think there's a lot of component from nutrient or growth factor that you increase when you exercise that will reach these cells or stem cells that produce these new neurons.
00:13:21
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. Now earlier you mentioned that you can get neurogenesis benefits if you don't like exercise. So could I just circle back to that point because it feels appropriate. I mean, I've asked you what you like, but I'm sure our listeners are thinking, " Yeah, don't like strength. I don't like cardio." What can they do?
00:13:36
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, if you really don't like exercise, then I think indeed from first I thought like, is this true? Are they people that really don't like exercise and don't find there are any benefits for them? And then after our study, I mean, I had data in front of me and then I said, " Okay, now I believe my brother who does not like exercising." And every time I'm like, " What do you mean you don't like? Surely you feel good after." I said, " No, I don't." And now we are trying to dissect what are the interaction maybe into, is it genetic or is it different interaction with that? So luckily this process of neurogenesis, you can modulate it by not just exercise but diet definitely is one of them. So we and others have shown that there are specific diet that will push neurogenesis and production of new neurons such as omega- free fatty acids increase neurogenesis, which is contained in fatty fish like a small piece of salmon like 100 gram every day on average will increase neurogenesis probably as much as going for a run, we'll say proportionally.
And then learning itself increase neurogenesis, which is really cool for your student, I guess, because they are revising, they are learning. So learning itself will increase neurogenesis. So you have this loop as well that you can foster. Obviously sleep as well is a big one where we rather have shown that actually sleep deprivation is decreasing neurogenesis, stress is decreasing neurogenesis. So basically balancing all that if you achieve some kind of a slightly positive slope with the good thing is good because we know that if you are revising probably you will sleep less and you will be a bit more stressed. So then if you are eating well and maybe exercising, that's a good one.
00:15:37
Krutika Adatia: You can balance out the kind of effects, right?
00:15:40
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, exactly.
00:15:40
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. And it's so great that you've mentioned sleep, nutrition, and learning, because we've got episodes and all of those on our series. Excellent. It's great for our listeners that it kind of all ties into one another.
00:15:52
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah. Molecular, cellular neurobiology level, sleep, stress, all of that and nutrition exercise will affect the production of new neurons.
00:16:02
Krutika Adatia: I see. Now of course we've spoken about the kind of benefits to learning and memory for certainly the short term, but what are the sort of benefits also long term by doing sustained periods of exercise and making it a habitual thing, for example?
00:16:18
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah. So I think, well, we didn't discuss a small detail of how long it takes to make a new neuron, but it's going to take to go from... So they are born from this neural stem cells that you have in the hippocampus and they are quite some meaning they are quiet, they will not divide, are not going to produce any neurons. But when they start, when they get the good stuff, it will take between probably eight to 10 weeks to go from a neural stem cell that does not have yet a function to become a neuron that is going to connect with the rest of the brain. So if you have this sustained activity, you are maintaining this flow of newborn neuron to be generated while obviously if it's just a one- off, once in a while, you might have a little burst and then nothing because it will take time to build this pool of cells that you are going to produce neurons that integrate your network and do their job basically.
00:17:21
Krutika Adatia: Right. I see. So you almost have to do sustained longer periods of exercise to reap the benefits of it. It can't just be like you're saying, a workout here, wait three months, do another workout, it's got to be more.
00:17:35
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah, it is better to have this sustained effect. Of course, we did talk at the start about this effect of this under thin release, it just makes you feel good after and that might have beneficial effect on its own, right? But when we talk about neurogenesis, this is more a sustained effect long term.
00:17:55
Krutika Adatia: And you've just mentioned mood. Actually, I want to dig into that a little bit more. I mean, how is it that exercise is helping to improve our mood? And we know for instance, our students can be really stressed. So when you're stressed, you may not intuitively think to go to exercise, but I know as well, since I've started doing exercise, I noticed the change in my mood. So talk to us a little bit more about that mood impact on the side.
00:18:20
Sandrine Thuret: So we have a lot of study on the aspect of mood and exercise and neurogenesis. So basically, I mentioned the anatomy of the hippocampus, so this ventral part that's really important for mood regulation and you have neurogenesis there as well and some colleague in Colombia have shown more than 25 years ago in animal model that if you block neurogenesis in mouse model, basically so you induce almost depressive effect and we see the same if you induce stress, you are going to decrease neurogenesis and induce depressive- like behavior.
But what they did there back then is that actually they block the ability to make new neuron, which you can do with some drugs. And then what they could see is that then if you try to give antidepressant to the mice, the antidepressant wouldn't work. So not all antidepressant would work this way, but some will be working this way. So that's why exercise on its own or anything that would improve neurogenesis will have this antidepressant- like effect if you want.
00:19:29
Krutika Adatia: Ah, so it's almost like when our students are stressed, they almost need to do the exercise and get out and do stuff. Even if it's a walk, would a walk-
00:19:37
Sandrine Thuret: Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Anything that we think that is going to increase heart rate, so then stimulate blood flow and preferably is enjoyable. So even if during COVID, one of my kid really got off, you couldn't do anything much and I was worried for them. So we're lucky enough to come up on a treadmill that we put in our backyard, courtyard.
00:20:05
Krutika Adatia: I love it.
00:20:05
Sandrine Thuret: And then for kids, going on the treadmill is useless. So then I just put a little cartoon on his iPad, stuck on the treadmill and then do what works for you. If you listen to your favorite podcast, if you want to go for a run or a walk. Worse to come, if you're like, " You know what? I'm more a visual person. I'm going to watch my favorite TV show at the gym while on the treadmill works as well."
00:20:34
Krutika Adatia: Yeah, I love that. Go for a walk, listen to On Your Marks whilst you're on your walk. Yeah. Dual benefits there.
00:20:37
Sandrine Thuret: Yes, yes.
00:20:40
Krutika Adatia: Love that. So actually let's get really real, I suppose. How much exercise do we actually need to be doing to reap the benefits? So could I say if I just go for a 10- minute walk, I'm going to reap the benefits of some of the things that you've described or does it need to be longer? What are your views on that?
00:20:59
Sandrine Thuret: Well, from our own data, what I can say is that we did from the intervention, so a proper trial where you have all the proper control, we see that we have efficacy three times a week for 30 minutes. So it is doable and the way we had structure it is that we are offering people to say people busy, they could choose between doing it early morning during their lunch break or in the evening. So it didn't matter when they were doing it, but as long as they were consistent to do that three times a week. So that's what we can say from our study. We think that would be the minimum where we have shown benefits.
00:21:45
Krutika Adatia: Yeah. So 30 minutes, three times a week , but consistency.
00:21:50
Sandrine Thuret: Yeah.
00:21:51
Krutika Adatia: I kind of want to just understand from you, is there also a preferred time of day or does it boil down to personal preference?
00:21:59
Sandrine Thuret: I think people have to try and see what they like best. I have a colleague who works on, basically it's more like a chronobiology and they find out indeed that some people have clear preferences when they enjoy exercising. So I think people should try and then realize, well, actually it works better for me in the morning or in the evening or during the day they can. Equally, it might be driven by what works in their busy life, but trying out both, I think like you, they will find out which one they preferred. I also suspect from personal experience, I suspect as well it's age as well aspect. I think when I was younger, I would like to exercise late at night better, but now I'm like you, I prefer to do it early morning. So things might change actually according to your life stages as well.
So people have to try it and see what works better, but we didn't find a relation between efficacy and when the people were doing their classes. If you have the choice, then what do you like best?
00:23:09
Krutika Adatia: So there's no real scientific evidence or studies that back up at preferred time of day, I suppose.
00:23:13
Sandrine Thuret: No, we didn't find statistically significance between when people would take the classes.
00:23:21
Krutika Adatia: You have shared so many golden nuggets through this conversation and I've certainly picked up a few things for myself, but just in terms of wrapping up, I mean, Sandrine, what would be your three top tips for exercising to get benefits for the brain?
00:23:36
Sandrine Thuret: I think we touch upon quite a few already. I would say find an exercise that you enjoy. I think that's the number one because no one want to be pushed to do something they don't like. If it stresses you to think about doing this exercise, then it's kind of lose out the benefit, I think. So if you try to find a type of exercise that you enjoy, or if you're older, you used to play sports game, maybe join again a team, something like that. So I think that would be the number one. Number two would be, I know we are all busy and trying to fit time in your life or exercising is very difficult.
So I think this is a tricky one, but think about the benefit we have discussed and then said, " Okay, can I spare 30 minutes today for myself for my brain or think about the long term?" Because we haven't discussed it yet, or we don't have time maybe to discuss it, but it is protective against dementia. So even if you are super young, or I would say even if you are in your early 30s, what you are doing now will have an impact when you are 70.
So I would say try to say to motivate yourself, think about the long- term benefits like, oh, I don't have time today for this 30 minutes, but do you really? Can you find maybe twice 15 minutes maybe morning and evening, worse to come, you could do that. And then the last one, what would be the last one? If you find within your family, your partner, convince them to join you, it might help because then you start motivating each other to say it, " Okay, let's do that together, let's go together." Yeah. So that would be my third one.
00:25:36
Krutika Adatia: And just on that third tip, actually, I must admit, I find myself being a lot more motivated when I'm going to classes rather than having to... Yeah, on days, because obviously Easter has just gone and there were weeks where the classes weren't on. And so when I was trying to then do homework out, I just wasn't finding the motivation as opposed to when you're in class. So thank you so much for sharing that sound dream.
00:26:00
Sandrine Thuret: There is a social aspect as well of exercise that could come into play. So something to keep in mind because yeah, the last one we know as well that social interaction increased neurogenesis. There you go.
00:26:13
Krutika Adatia: Oh, wow.
00:26:14
Sandrine Thuret: Good exercise in group.
00:26:15
Krutika Adatia: Thank you so much, Sandrine. That's been really useful.
00:26:18
Sandrine Thuret: Thank you.
00:26:19
Krutika Adatia: That's it from this episode of On Your Marks. Thank you, Sandrine, for chatting with me today. For more information about ACCA exams, you can go to www. accaglobal. com/ exams and to watch the video version of this podcast, check out the link in the show notes. See you next time. I'm Krutika Adatia and this has been On Your Marks. On Your Marks is a Fresh Air Production for ACCA. Its producers are Eva Higginbotham, Annie Day and Finlay Macrae. It's edited by Helen Quigley.
