Monday, December 03, 2007

Depression

Reports in the news (link) have indicated that the Hippocampus plays a leading role in some forms of depression. Further to this, exercise and movement can also help people feel less depressed. It's suggested that the reason for this is that the exercise itself is the aiding mechanism.

The Hippocampus is the centre in the brain mostly responsible for spatial navigation (link) which leads me to think that the depression/exercise balance is actually more of a depression/spatial awareness balance!

It would make some sense to me for there to be a biological imperative to keep our spatial awareness and knowledge of our surroundings up to scratch and hence any imbalance to this could lead to depresssion and cerebral problems.

It's an interesting thought anyway. I suppose I'd better go for a walk now ....

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