Exercise may boost brain's natural antidepressant
Studies have found that exercise can help ease depression symptoms, but the reasons for the benefit have not been clear. For the new study, scientists used a tool called a microarray to examine how exercise changed gene activity in the brains of mice.
The researchers found that mice that had a week's worth of workouts on a running wheel showed altered activity in a total of 33 genes, the majority of which had never been identified before.
In particular, exercise enhanced activity in the gene for a nerve growth factor known as VGF. Nerve growth factors are small proteins important in the development and maintenance of nerve cells.
Moreover, when the researchers infused a synthetic version of VGF into the brains of the mice, it produced a "robust antidepressant effect" in standardized tests of animals placed in stressful situations.
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