Exercise doesn’t only strengthen your heart and muscles – it also beefs up your brain. Dozens of studies now show that aerobic exercise can increase the size of critical brain structures and improve cognition in children and older adults.
University of Illinois psychology professor Art Kramer, a nationally recognized expert on the role of physical fitness on cognition, discussed these brain-changing outcomes at a session of the 2013 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. Kramer is the director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I.