Exercise pumps up your muscles ' but it might also be pumping up your neurons. According to a study published today in Neuron1, repeated exercise sessions on a treadmill strengthen the wiring in a mouse's brain, making certain neurons quicker to activate. This 'rewiring' was essential for mice in the study to gradually improve their running endurance. The work reveals that the brain ' in mice and, presumably, in humans ' is actively involved in the development of endurance, the ability to get better at a physical activity with repeated practice, says Nicholas Betley, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a co-author of the paper. 'You go for a run, and your lungs expand, your heart gets pumping better, your muscles break down and rebuild. All this great stuff happens, and the next time, it gets easier,' Betley says. 'I didn't expect that the brain was coordinating all of that.' They decided to focus on the ventromedial hypothalamus, a brain region...
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