Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

Actually, the article is mainly about running. Music is mentioned just once, and a bit tangentially.<p>PS. the photo in the article shows the waterfront of Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Georges Island to the left. The island is the site of Fort Charlotte. During the seven years war, the English imprisoned 2000 French sailors there, which is hard to imagine, given the size of the island (all of which is visible in the photo).

I have been a runner for just about my whole life (ran track in HS) is started listening to music when the small mp3 players first came out and I noticed that it seemed to interfere with my &quot;runners high&quot; a little bit. I know this is tied to beta endorphins but I also think there is a Zen like aspect. So I stopped using the player and instead just let my mind run free too. My theory is that running can also unlock a type of meditative experience in the brain. I notice how much more clearly I can think after. It could be an evolutionary anachronism in that when the hunter man begins to run that the brain enters a state of heightened acuity in preparation for the kill. Who knows.

Do runners create brains? Or do brains create runners? The study is interesting but, as the article mentions, more needs to be learned.<p>That aside, it&#x27;s likely a bit of both. In the case of the latter (I.e., brain creates runner) what happens when the person fails to realize their potential (?)? That is, you have a runner brain but are 20 lbs overweight and sit on your ass all day. Does that, can that, drive mental illness e.g., depression)?<p>Regardless, lack of blood flow can&#x27;t be a positive.

I found that learning music unlocked pattern comprehensions that were very mathematical. Multiple layers of abstraction (rhythm or note points, derivatives of these two, overlay, non linear transformations, and the equivalent momentum phenomenons).<p>Running is something that trigger creative mind activity for me. And a form of flow. I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if other physical activity would do the same: climbing, even body building when done in a meditative manner (maybe?).

There was an interesting study that looked at Facebook likes and personality types of a large number of people. They found the pages&#x2F;interests that were the most heavily correlated with each of the major personality dimensions. It&#x27;s really interesting and you can see the whole chart twoard the bottom of this article: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;datalab&#x2F;this-algorithm-knows-you-better-than-your-facebook-friends-do&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;datalab&#x2F;this-algorithm-knows-you-...</a><p>Emotional stability was highly correlated with running, sports, and general outdoor activities (and also rap music, interestingly.) Is it because spending time outside makes people more emotionally stable? Or do emotionally stable people just enjoy outdoor activities more?

This title is a little click-baity, but I think one of the nice takeaways from the article was the connectivity in the frontal cortex.<p>I&#x27;ve been researching how to improve CS education this past semester, and its taken me down a long road of cog. psych. Much of this information is &quot;true&quot;, but shouldn&#x27;t be read as &quot;Runners and musicians are &#x27;smarter&#x27;&quot;. Firstly, what&#x27;s it mean to be &#x27;smart&#x27;?<p>As expertise grows, that knowledge needs to be stored somewhere. In my studies, this led to Cambridge&#x27;s Handbook Of Expertise [1], in which there is a chapter focusing on perceptual-motor expertise. In violinists, the neural plasticity of the cerebellum expanded similarly to the cerebellum&#x27;s in chess players. As my link and this article sort of point out, mental and physical expertise cause the brain to expand.<p>There is some discussion about the brain being an &quot;arena&quot; for limited neural tissue; however, I am by no means an expert of the brain.<p>My interpretation of this information is that the same practices done in runners&#x2F;musicians can be applied to other mental practices - ala CS. You get better at running by running; you get better at playing a violin by practicing your scales; what are the elements of CS that can be reduced to these solitary practices as a means to get better at them?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1017&#x2F;CBO9780511816796" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1017&#x2F;CBO9780511816796</a>

Do we know if that is because Runners and Musicians tend to be generally better educated and raised, both those things being markers of middle- and upper- class membership?

I&#x27;ve been running since XC in HS, but reconnected in my mid twenties to overcome addictions.<p>Since then I&#x27;ve more or less just substituted one for the other, but the running seems to have better long-term effects.<p>The activity is closely connected with my work and personal life -- in that when I don&#x27;t run, the rest of my life suffers.

This doesn&#x27;t sound like a good study to me because of the two groups they are comparing. Even in the original article (which I only had a brief look at), it seems they didn&#x27;t do a really fair comparison but compared two completely different groups with each other.<p>With the same study, they could also have said &quot;people with more brain connections feel a stronger urge to run long distances&quot;.<p>A better study would have been to take a group of lazy people, divide them into two groups, one will do long distance running in the next year, one won&#x27;t, and an additional group of current runners divided into the same groups. Then I would start believing this.<p>Right now it sounds just like a flawed first-time study an undergrad did.

So, what kind of musical instrument can you play while running?

I would like to see this study replicated as the sample size of 22 seems low, and I have a strong suspicion nutrition plays a very large role as covariate here.<p>Just not sure how generalizable this is. Ive been doing some data analysis internship for a similar study but more brain vs circadian cycles. The human data is often messy and does not replicate.<p>The clonal mouse studies data is often more consistent, and what Im building an in silico model for.

A hypothesis mentioned in the original paper: &quot;...it is also possible that the cognitive benefits of exercise occur because locomotion is not simply an automated repetitive motor task, but is instead a highly complex behavior that involves domains related to both motor and cognitive functions. For example, walking or running through complex environments can engage several components of executive function including volition, self-awareness, planning, inhibition, monitoring, attentional switching and multi-tasking, in addition to motor control...&quot;<p>If that is indeed the mechanism which accounts for the brain differences claimed, perhaps mountaineers, sidecountry &amp; backcountry skiers or snowboarders, mountain bikers or long-distance hikers might be better groups than runners for validating this.

I found a lot of my questions from the article were quickly explained by looking over the paper.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.3389&#x2F;fnhum.2016.00610" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.3389&#x2F;fnhum.2016.00610</a>

So maybe I missed it in the article, but it seems like they just tested a group of physically active students, and those who weren&#x27;t. Does running have anything to do with the &quot;functional connectivity&quot; or is it just exercise in general? The article says we&#x27;ve known exercising is good for the brains of older people for some time now, the new study just tested the effects on younger people. Shouldn&#x27;t the title be &quot;exercise is good for the brains of young people too&quot;?

Here&#x27;s a question. I have no desire to learn an instrument, so is it still possible to learn enough music theory to reap the mental benefits?<p>As far as running goes, my knees don&#x27;t allow for it.

Hmm it depends upon where you run. Diesel fumes give you a stroke

It&#x27;s not even clear that this is about running. They compared runners to sedentary individuals; this sounds like another &quot;exercise is good&quot; conclusion to me.

&#x2F;me is often downvoted : I should not be then.<p>I play bass, and can run 15km in one hour without breaking too much of a sweat.<p>Humm ... better means nothing... Yet another whizz bang science that is void of any sense.<p>But it is nice to have ego boosting article.

if you really want to improve your brain during exercise, try dancing like jazz&#x2F;modern&#x2F;lyric&#x2F;ballet&#x2F;street. A nearly common characteristic of dancing people I know is that their mind is quite bright<p>some arguments: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;neuro.hms.harvard.edu&#x2F;harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute&#x2F;brain-newsletter&#x2F;and-brain-series&#x2F;dancing-and-brain" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;neuro.hms.harvard.edu&#x2F;harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-in...</a>

I always assumed all things that required effort and coordination between the two halves of the brain would increase the connectivity, specifically over the corpus callosum.

We&#x27;ve updated the title from “Runners and musicians have better-connected brains than the rest of us” to that of the article.