prescription that would improve your
memory improve your depression decrease
decrease your risk of Parkinson’s
disease or Alzheimer’s disease would you
take it if I told you that this
treatment isn’t a designer drug a
special diet an implantable device a
supplement or vitamin are you still
interested the most amazing thing about
this treatment is that it’s simply
exercise good old-fashioned breaking a
sweat or pumping iron are you still
interested the human brain is made up of
80 billion neurons with a hundred
trillion connections disruptions in any
of these connections can cause brain
diseases like Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s or
depression I’m a neurobiologist a
scientist who studies cells of the
nervous system and how these cells work
together to produce behavior
specifically body movement in my free
time I race bikes I love to move my body
and go really really fast as a
competitive cyclist I spend countless
hours focusing on my body movement and
specifically my pedaling cadence or
revolutions per minute I’m going to show
you that the key to helping the brain
repair and rewire itself may very well
be that cadence that I strive so hard to
scientists used to believe that no new
neurons were produced after brain
development was complete in childhood
they thought that your brain is
essentially unchanged after your 18th
birthday however we now know that the
brain has an amazing capacity to repair
and rewire itself beyond childhood and
into adulthood now the key to helping
the brain repair itself is to find the
right treatment so how can this
self-healing be turned on and people
have had a stroke we know that early
rehabilitation therapy can promote
reorganization of the brain and
restoration of function however in other
brain disease
like Parkinson’s disease standard
physical therapy doesn’t really help
these people have improved movement in
fact we showed that simply getting on an
exercise bike doesn’t really help
now in my research lab I found that high
cadence cycling can improve movement and
people with Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s up is a progressive
neurological disorder the brains of
these people stop producing an important
chemical called dopamine
now dopamine helps neurons of the brain
talk to each other specifically to
produce movements the idea behind my
research is that the brain is
essentially able to change and rewire so
that the symptoms of Parkinson’s are
better
however those symptoms make it
challenging for people to move fast so I
thought I can pedal really fast and if I
get on a tandem bike with people with
Parkinson’s then I can help them pedal
really fast
now our first studies used a tandem bike
to help people with Parkinson’s pedal at
a fast cadence the trainer me was
responsible for driving that cadence now
as a neurobiologist in a cyclist I was
thrilled at the prospects of being able
to ride a bike for work and specifically
to help people
it was exciting that I got to do that
and what we saw was that the high
cadence was more challenging than I ever
imagined none of these people were
cyclists and although they worked very
hard I ended up doing about 75% of the
work now this was a little more than I
bargained for in addition it wasn’t
something that a friend or a family
member could do very easily because of
the high cadence however we did find the
individuals who completed tandem cycling
could improve their motor performance by
about thirty five percent over an
eight-week period we also showed using
functional magnetic resonance imaging
that blood flow has increased in areas
of the brain that were important in
producing movement so this for cycling
was very effective in improving
Parkinson’s symptoms but it wasn’t
really practical in a real-world setting
because of the challenging cadence now
in order to overcome this challenge I
next developed a motorized exercise bike
which would help people with Parkinson’s
pedal faster the trainer the human
trainer was basically substituted with a
computer and a controller this allowed
me to test my theory without any
spending all my time at the sweaty mess
in spandex shorts let me illustrate this
theory by telling a story mr. s was a 69
year old who had had Parkinson’s for ten
years before he volunteered for a study
over that ten-year period his strength
his balance and his walking had suffered
so that he was actually confined to a
wheelchair I put him in the high Keynes
bike and at the end of that tandem
cycling intervention he was actually
able to pull himself up using a handrail
of a staircase and to actually walk down
those three stairs on his own two feet
his wife who was actually with him at
the time which was very surprised and I
remember her saying to me he used the
stairs he hasn’t used the stairs in
three years now the reduced tremor and
the increased speed of movement that we
see after this hiking cycling a dramatic
and we have many examples like this
however the solution isn’t that simple
tremor slow movements gait and balance
issues that are characteristic of
Parkinson’s disease not all individuals
have these symptoms in addition the
disease is progressive which means
symptoms get worse with time
so any treatments need to be
individualized and also adaptive so the
next set of studies that we did or that
we use
computer modeling and engineering to
actually optimize the exercise for each
individual so just like a treadmill can
change elevation and speed my smart
bikes can change resistance and cadence
in order to optimize the brain changes
and people with Parkinson’s so now we
know that our brains can heal in
adulthood and we also know that hiking
cycling can motivate neurons to repair
or reroute around injured areas think of
all the debilitating neurological
disorders that could potentially be
improved if we can find just the right
type of exercise my research shows the
importance of hiking cycling and
improving Parkinson’s symptoms and I
hope that my smart bikes will be a
practical solution through further
research
now these findings also suggest that
personalized exercise medicine could
help people with other neurological
conditions like multiple sclerosis are
also Alzheimer’s so you may not like to
exercise because it makes you tired it
makes you sweaty
it makes you sore but there are a lot of
data suggests that exercise is indeed
medicine for the brain so I encourage
you to take that prescription and get
moving your brain will thank you and I
thank you [Applause]