Abstract

The concept that lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet, and intellectual activity affect the health and function of the brain has gained increasing traction over the past decade. In particular, exercise participation has emerged as a powerful strategy to improve learning and memory, delay age-related cognitive decline, and reduce the risk of neurodegeneration. In humans, the benefits of exercise have been most clearly demonstrated in elderly populations, where sustained exercise participation improves a wide range of cognitive processes. The most robust benefits emerge for the brain's frontal lobes (responsible for executive function), as well as the hippocampus (critical for learning and memory), and the anterior cingulate (involved in both executive function and aspects of memory). Essentially, the cognitive capacities that are most susceptible to functional decline with age are those that are most benefited by exercise, suggesting that exercise slows brain aging. Research aimed at understanding the underlying mechanisms that mediate benefits of physical activity on brain health and cognitive function is an area of intense activity, with many exciting findings discovered in the past two decades. In addition, an emerging field that builds on the benefits of exercise reveals that lifestyle factors such as cognitive stimulation (“enrichment”) and diet interact with exercise to further benefit brain health and function. This chapter focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms that have been identified as key factors mediating benefits of exercise on cognitive health, and will briefly review recent findings on interactive effects of exercise, diet, and enrichment on brain health and function.