Short Bursts Of Cycling Leads To Brain-Boosting BDNF Spikes, Study Finds

Exercise is amazingly good for your brain. Even a 10-minute walk might help to improve your mood, focus, and reaction time; 150 minutes of activity a week could keep your mind younger for longer.

A new paper published in Brain Research has suggested that short bursts of exercise could increase people’s brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), linked to the health and growth of brain cells.

BDNF has been described as a “fertiliser for the brain”.

15 minutes made a lot of difference to unfit participants 

In this research, the scientists took participants (aged 18-55) who weren’t physically active and asked them to take part in a 12-week programme with short cycling sessions, three times a week.

They looked at factors like the participants’ VO2 max (or their ability to use oxygen efficiently during exercise) and BDNF, both before and after the 12-week scheme.

They also completed tasks which were designed to test their attention, reaction times and memory.

And scientists looked at the activity in their prefrontal cortex, which is linked to focus, decision-making and impulse control, too.

After their training, the participants’ base-level BDNF was roughly the same as when they started. 

But after a 15-minute workout, they saw a higher spike in BDNF than the participants had had when they started. This positively correlated with VO2 improvements, linked to overall aerobic fitness. 

These higher BDNF levels brought on by exercise were linked to better focus, attention, and inhibition.

This might help to explain why exercise is so good for our brains 

“We’ve known for a while that exercise is good for our brains, but the mechanisms through which this occurs are still being disentangled,” the study’s lead author, Dr Flaminia Ronca, said. 

“The most exciting finding from our study is that if we become fitter, our brains benefit even more from a single session of exercise, and this can change in only six weeks.”