The bigger the hippocampus, the better the brain

Regular exercise may be good for a senior citizen's health as well as increasing their ability to remember where they left the keys.


A new study has found that elderly adults who are more physically fit than others in their age group tend to have bigger hippopcampi and better spatial memory than those who are less fit.


The hippocampus, a brain structure located in the medial temporal lobe, assist

s a person with their short term memory.


In the research, published in Hippocampus, a total of 165 adults between the ages of 59 and 81 had their cardiorespiratory fitness level examined and then had scanned their brains to see if there was any correlation between health and memory.


The results showed a significant association between an individual's fitness and his or her performance on spatial memory tests.


"Even ignoring the hippocampus data, we see there is this significant and substantial relationship between how fit you are and how good your memory is, or at least a certain kind of memory, a certain kind of memory that we need all the time," said psychology professor Art Kramer, who led the study.


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