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Immobility leads to brain shrinkage.
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Neurophysiologists have stated that in middle age people simply need to lead an active lifestyle, otherwise the brain begins to gradually decrease in size. The specialists published the results of their work in a popular scientific journal, where it is noted that they managed to find a direct link between lifestyle (active or sedentary) and the size of the brain (while changes in size occur over decades, i.e. already in old age). Specialists note that a sedentary lifestyle accelerates the aging process of the brain, which with age leads to the drying out of one of the main organs of the human body.
Nicole Sportano and her colleagues conducted a study that examined data from 20 years of observations of 1,500 volunteers. At that time, a project was being conducted to monitor the health of various human organs. All participants had to undergo testing at the beginning and end of the trial period, which helped determine the level of physical fitness of each of them. After the testing, magnetic resonance imaging of the brain of each of the participants in the experiment was conducted. The scientists based their conclusions about the level of physical fitness on the amount of oxygen that each of the participants burned in 1 minute on a treadmill, as well as on how much a person could withstand on the exercise machine until the heart rate reached its maximum values.
Sportano and her team compared the results of the treadmill and MRI data, after which a certain pattern was revealed - with a low level of physical fitness, rapid fatigue, after 20 years, a decrease in the brain was observed (MRI data were compared at the beginning and end of the test period). Scientists noted that, on average, with a decrease in the maximum level of oxygen consumption by 9 units, the life of the brain decreased by 1 year.
Similar results were found in volunteers who had increased heart rate and blood pressure while exercising on the machine (compared to those who regularly exercised).
As a result, scientists concluded that low levels of physical activity affect the rate of brain aging. Now Sportano and his colleagues cannot say exactly why this happens, perhaps it is precisely because of the lack of movement that the brain begins to "shrink", or the reasons lie in completely different processes in the body, and the reduction of the brain and a sedentary lifestyle are only a consequence of these changes. It was also suggested that the reason for the reduction of the brain is a lack of oxygen - due to inactivity, less oxygen enters the cells, which ultimately leads to "shrinkage".
But at this stage, all of this is just scientists’ assumptions, and further work in this direction will help to obtain more accurate answers to all questions.
Previous studies by another research group have shown that physical activity in childhood has a positive effect on brain function. According to the scientists, active children have better functioning gut bacteria, and in later life, people have a good metabolism and high brain activity.