腿部運動能使你的大腦更聰明

Exercising your legs is necessary for a healthy brain and nervous system, said a new study that showed that neurological health depends on signals sent by leg muscles to the brain and vice versa.

一項新研究表明，腿部鍛煉對于大腦和神經系統(tǒng)的健康十分必要，神經健康依賴于腿部肌肉傳送到大腦的信號，反之亦然。

The results gave doctors new clues as to why patients with motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy and other neurological diseases often rapidly decline when their movement becomes limited.

這一研究結果為醫(yī)生們提供了新的線索，解釋為什么運動神經元疾病、多發(fā)性硬化癥、脊髓肌肉萎縮和其他神經系統(tǒng)疾病的患者在運動受限時肌肉往往會迅速萎縮。

Reducing exercise makes it difficult for the body to produce new nerve cells -- some of the very building blocks that allows one to adapt to stress and challenges in life.

減少鍛煉會降低身體細胞的再生成，而這些新生細胞正是人們適應生活壓力并并面臨挑戰(zhàn)的基本要素。

 

"Our study supports the notion that people who are unable to do load-bearing exercises -- such as patients who are bed-ridden, or even astronauts on extended travel -- not only lose muscle mass, but their body chemistry is altered at the cellular level and even their nervous system is adversely impacted," said Raffaella Adami from the University of Milan, in Italy.

意大利米蘭大學的拉法埃拉·阿達米表示：“我們的研究表明，那些無法做負重練習的人，如臥床不起的患者甚至是長期工作的宇航員，他們不僅會失去肌肉，他們身體的化學成分也會在細胞水平上改變，這些改變甚至會對他們的神經系統(tǒng)產生不利影響。”

During the study, the researchers restricted mice from using their hind legs, but not their front legs for a period of 28 days. They continued to eat and groom normally and did not exhibit stress.

在這項研究中，研究人員在28天內綁住老鼠的后腿，但是讓其前腿可以繼續(xù)運動，這些老鼠可以正常的進食和刷洗，也沒有表現(xiàn)出壓力。

The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, showed that limiting their legactivity decreased the number of neural stem cells by 70 per cent compared to a controlled group of mice, which were allowed to use their legs.

試驗結果發(fā)表在《神經科學前沿》雜志上，試驗表明，與那些可以使用雙腿的對照組小鼠相比，限制它們的腿部活動可使神經干細胞的數(shù)量減少70%。

Further, they found that restricting exercise lowered the amount of oxygen in the body, which created an anaerobic environment and alters metabolism.

此外，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)限制運動可以降低體內的氧氣含量，從而產生厭氧環(huán)境進而改變了新陳代謝。