Aerobic Exercise On Short-Term Memory Study

Samantha Callahan, Department of Psychology, Lindenwood University; Danielle Patrick, Department of Psychology, Lindenwood University; Sara Roderick, Department of Psychology, Lindenwood University; Kahla Stygar, Department of Psychology, Lindenwood University.

A study conducted by Harvard Medical School regarding on how could exercise help your brain and what kind of exercise will help your brain to have a better result. In this article, we learn that exercises can help your brain and can also help your memory. The researchers examined different people to try to understand what exercises could help your brain using 30 minutes section. In this study, the researchers randomly evaluate people doing exercises like cardio and compared their memory and their productivity with those that didn’t any type of exercises.

The participants were 20 men and 60 women with ages ranging from 17 to 26. The participants were from different majors at Texas State University and were recruited from introductory psychology classes. The participants were 51% Caucasian, 38% Hispanic, 4% African American, and 7% other. The participants were not

Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields (2015) state that there is research showing how brain plasticity can be enhanced through aerobic exercise (p.51). It is important that adults be active in their lives. A 30-minute walk or some type of physical activity will benefit them as the age. The text mentions a study done by Erickson and his colleagues in 2009 where they studied the effect of aerobic exercise on the hippocampus. They found that due to aerobic exercise it produced greater volume in the hippocampus. This is significant because the hippocampus is the part of the brain that is responsible for memory, emotions, and spatial functioning. The body does not only need physical activities to produce healthier cognitive functioning but also nutrients. The text identifies three nutrient biomarker patterns that are significant on the aging brain. These nutrients are vitamin B, C,D, and E, omega-3, and trans fat. the foods that belong to these nutrients are beneficial to the brain. Older adults should make an effort to include these nutrients into their diets. positive impacts these nutrients make are better cognitive functioning and greater brain

Introductory Psychology students (N = 305) from a mid-western university participated in the study online for course credit. Sixty-eight percent of the participants identified as female, 32% of the participants identified as male, and one participant did not indicate their gender. The majority of the participants were Caucasian (73%), and the average age of the participants was 19.04 (SD = 1.10).

The sample for this study consisted of 222 participants who were second year psychology students from the University of Newcastle. All students were participating as part of a course requirement and all had given their consent to participating in the study.

The materials used for this study included PsychMate Student Version 2.0 (St. James, Walter Schneider and Amy Eschman.) Psychology Software Tools, Inc. Along with the PsychMate software, a computer provided by Queens College was used in order to successfully complete the study.

Roger goes to his friend’s wedding where he is introduced to over 50 people. Roger’s goal at this wedding is to meet new people, and remember as many names as he can. In order for him to get their names into long-term memory, he first needs to get them past sensory, and short term memory. For him to be able to do this, he needs to come up with some strategies to remember these names. He will learn when it is necessary for him to rehearse the names over in his head, group some of them together, or making connections to the names. By testing out these strategies, we will learn how information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory, and hopefully to long-term memory.

Smith et al. (2013) took a less studied approach to improving cognitive decline by testing the effects of aerobic exercise on adults (60-88 years old) already suffering from cognitive impairment. After 12 weeks of moderate exercise there was an improvement of memory and neural efficiency across all subjects.

The human brain is constantly changing where many new neurons are formed while others neurons die and new synapses are created while other synapses are removed (Spalding et al., 2013). Some dendrites will withdraw while other dendrites continue branching (Killgore et al., 2013). The processes driving the reshaping of the brain are neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s lifelong ability to rewire neural connections to compensate for diseases and injuries or in response to changes in the environment, whereas neurogenesis is the ability to create new neurons and neural connections. This dynamic process of remodeling gray matter is determined mainly by a person’s genetics and can slow down due to age (Denes, 2016). However, recent scientific evidence demonstrates other non-genetic factors that can significantly improve the development of the brain and slow down neurodegeneration (Kays et al., 2012). Physical exercise has always been linked to a person’s physical health, but many recent scientific studies shows physical exercise can also keep a person’s brain sharp. Exercise affects the brain in numerous ways by creating a flourishing environment for brain growth, aiding the release of numerous hormones, and fighting against depression, stress, and anxiety.

Short Term Memory Loss. Ironically most of us don’t even think about memory that often, much less Short Term Memory. Because of that, this psychological disorder often tends to get overlooked for a small problem that no one wants to take serious. Most people would recognize this disorder from the popular movie, Finding Nemo. In which one of the main characters suffers from short term memory loss. In the film it’s taken as a lovable flaw, instead of the serious disorder that it is. But Short Term Memory is a lot more than one disorder found in a character in a movie. It is a somber disorder that could happen to any of us. This paper will be going through the gravity of this disorder and the causes to its victims.

The participants in this experiment were 20 randomly chosen first year Psychology undergraduate students from the University of Essex. 70 % of the Participants were females and 30 % were males. The mean age in this experiment was 18.5 years.

Altogether 457 participants were recruited through their tutorial classes in this research. The participants are doing a psychology unit in four campuses in Australian Catholic University. The campuses involved were Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Strathfield. The age of the participants varies across all ages. However, the calculated mean of the age is 20.75 years with a standard deviation of 5.58. The percentage of female participants is 74.7% which is higher than the percentage of male participants which were 25.3%.

In recent years brain training games have become a topic of interest among both researchers and common people alike. Researchers are interested in the healing properties of brain training while normal people are looking to brain training as a way to improve their performance and get a leg up on the competition in school, work, and life. Up until recently, it was believed that the brain was unchangeable in terms of memory capacity. Researchers were well aware of the fact that the brain can change and form new connections when brain damage occurs. However, the idea that humans can train their brains to be more efficient and stronger seemed like a far-fetched cry from reality up until the late 1990’s (Weicker, Villringer & Thöne-Otto, 2016). As time went on and more research was conducted in the field of brain training, it became clear that brain training is not an exact science but, it does have real cognitive benefits.

The Erikson et al. article supports the idea that physical exercise helps the brain by improving memory and the size of the hippocampus. Erikson and his colleagues suggested in their study that physical exercise increases the retention of information and improves learning capabilities. The way they measured this was by studying the increased or decreased size of the subject’s hippocampus and levels of BDNF. The control group in this experiment completed stretching/toning exercises while the experimental group did aerobic exercise; the experimental group ended up having a larger hippocampus volume than when starting out, as well as higher levels of BDNF; the