A good reason to get out and walk every day (if not run):
How inactivity changes the brain
Here is yet another sobering note for couch potatoes. Lack of exercise (in rats) causes undesirable remodeling of the brain. Gretchen Reynolds points to work by Mischel et al. (open source) showing that inactive versus active rats show changes in the region of the rostral ventrolateral medulla that regulates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing connectivity and reactivity, potentially overstimulating the sympathetic nervous system to constrict blood vessels, increase blood pressure, and thus enhance the possibility of cardiovascular disease.
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