Underlying mechanisms for physical activity-induced brain plasticity

Physical activity is an important component in daily life which become more important when comes to health-related complications. Physical activity regardless the type and intensity, can bring beneficial effect for general health and can improve skills in several aspects including learning tasks and response to stimuli along with other health benefits. By recruiting regular physical activity and exercise, which happened for athletes, some structural and functional changes may occur in some regions of brain including increase in network connection, increase the speed of message transformation, increase in gray matter, synaptic plasticity and brain plasticity. There are several suggested mechanisms for physical activity-induced brain plasticity including increase in gene expression, BDNF, IGF-1, VEGF and activation of cellular cascade. Although the beneficial effects of physical activity on brain flexibility is well known which is reviled in athletes, the most effective type of activity which can affect brain flexibility the most, is not clear yet.