Health Corner: Prolonged Sitting Tied to Brain Atrophy/Social Disastors

Lorenzo's Health Corner: Prolonged Sitting Tied to Brain Atrophy   By Damian McNamara “Prolonged periods of sitting in middle age is tied to brain atrophy, new research shows.   Using MRI, investigators found sedentary behavior is a significant predictor of medial temporal lobe (MTL) thinning and its substructures and that physical activity, even at high levels, does not offset the harmful effects of sitting for extended periods.   "The atrophy and anti-neuroplastic processes associated with cognitive decline are thought to begin in the medial temporal lobe. The hippocampal formation and its surrounding structures, specifically, are essential for memory function," lead author, Prabha Siddarth, PhD, a biostatistician at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), told Medscape Medical News.   "It is thought that information is initially collected through the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices, passes to the entorhinal cortex, and ultimately reaches the hippocampal formation. In addition to funneling information to the hippocampus, the subregions of the parahippocampus are also implicated in some information processing on their own," she added.”   https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/895272   Reader's digest: Social Disastors