Exercise helps muscles expand, and it can help your brain grow, too. New research confirms that doing aerobic exercise for 30 minutes, 3 times a week, can enlarge the hippocampus, a part of the brain that regulates emotion and memory. But particularly exciting is the discovery that significant hippocampal growth occurs not only in healthy participants but also in those with schizophrenia.
Researchers have long known that schizophrenics have smaller hippocampuses, and believed that schizophrenics might have a decreased capacity for neurogenesis, or brain growth. But in a recent German study, schizophrenics showed almost as much hippocampal growth as the healthy controls, with improved short-term memory skills to match. So doctors treating schizophrenia may have some additional advice to give their patients: Work up a sweat to improve your working memory.
Tried and True
Exercise may be a new way to help schizophrenics, but some treatments have been doing the job for years.
- Antipsychotic medications alleviate hallucinations, delusions, and incoherence.
- Rehabilitation helps schizophrenics cultivate communication and social skills and obtain and keep jobs.
- Psychotherapy can help patients identify intensification of symptoms. It also helps schizophrenics learn to cope with stress and understand themselves and their disorder.
- Support groups are a good option for connecting both schizophrenics and their families with others facing the same challenges. The support of the groups provides information, advocacy, and a much-needed sense of community.
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Brain Growth,
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muscles,
neurogenesis,
psychotherapy,
schizophrenia,
schizophrenics,
short term memory,
treating schizophrenia,
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