If you want to keep your young brain, dance!

An investigation by German scientists showed that, among all physical activities, dancing is the best combating of brain aging.

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According to the researchers, any physical activity (not just dancing) is advisable to keep a healthy brain.

An investigation carried out by the German Center for the Prevention of Degenerative Diseases showed that among a group of physical activities, the one that did a better job taking care of the neural networks, was the dance.

According to Dr. Kathrin Rehfeld, "dancing has the beneficial effect of slowing down and even counterattacking the decline in physical and mental abilities that are age related."

Among the key areas that could benefit from this type of physical activity is the hippocampus, whose degeneration is associated with diseases such as the Alzhaimer, as this region plays a central role in memory and learning as well as balance.

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The study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, was carried out with 68-year-old volunteers, who chose between a program without resistance and flexibility training variations and another where they learned routines of Dance of different musical genres. "The steps, arm patterns, formations, velocities and rhythms were changed every two weeks in order to keep them learning", Rehfeld explained.

After 18 weeks, the participants' progress was evaluated and the results were clear: those who enrolled in dance classes improved substantially compared to the other group, especially in the balance and handling of their body. Dr. Rehfeld believes that these results are due to the extra challenges involved in changing dance routines, as well as genres, every two weeks.

"For now we are evaluating the implementation of a new system for older people called" Jymming ", which, with sensors, generate sounds, melodies and rhythms, based on levels of physical activity," said lead researcher Kathrin Rehfeld.

This research, he added, may help in work with patients suffering from senile dementia, who have already been shown to respond positively to auditory stimuli, especially to music.

"We want to combine these promising aspects of physical activity with music in an aspect of viability with patients with this disease," he concluded.

Source:
El Espectador
www.elespectador.com

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