Exercise Spurs Nerve Growth Through Biochemical and Physical Impact
Summary: Researchers found that exercise promotes neuron growth through both biochemical signals (myokines) and physical stretching. Muscle cells, when contracted, release myokines that boost neuron growth and maturity. Furthermore, neurons that were “exercised” through mechanical movement grew just as much as those exposed to myokines.
These findings reveal the dual role of exercise in stimulating nerves, offering hope for developing therapies targeting nerve repair and neurodegenerative diseases. This research opens new avenues in treating nerve damage through “exercise as medicine.”
There’s no doubt that exercise does a body good. Regular activity not only strengthens muscles but can bolster our bones, blood vessels, and immune system.
Now, MIT engineers have found that exercise can also have benefits at the level of individual neurons. They observed that when muscles contract during exercise, they release a soup of biochemical signals called myokines.
