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Vitamin A is generally associated with low-light vision and color vision.  Salk Institute researchers also found that Vitamin A is essential to learning and memory.  When researchers removed Vitamin A from mice’s diets, they found that the mice experienced “diminished chemical changes in the brain considered the hallmarks of learning and memory” (Salk Institute).  When researchers added Vitamin A back to the mice’s diets, the mice’s cognitive impairment was reversed.

On researcher, Sharoni Jacobs, stated, “These data indicate that vitamin A is necessary for optimal function in the hippocampus, which we know to be a main seat of learning.”

Another researchers, Ronald M. Evans, added, “The study indicates that the detrimental effects of vitamin A deprivation are remarkably reversible, which offers hope to the millions of children worldwide with vitamin A-deficient diets.”

Genetically identical litter mates were given either normal diets or ones lacking Vitamin A.  Researchers evaluated the hippocampus regions of the brains for long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) in both groups of mice.  Both LTP and LTD have long been correlated with learning ability.  LTP is a long-lasting enhancement in signal transmission between two neurons that results from stimulating these neurons synchronously.

** Carotene – not as rich as Retinol as a source of vitamin A.

Jacobs reported, “At 15 weeks of age, the responses of vitamin A-deprived mice are reduced to about 50 percent normal. At longer time points, LTP is stable at 50 percent, but LTD drops to almost undetectable levels.”

After restoring Vitamin A to the deficient mice’s diets for as little as two days, these mice’s brain responses returned to normal levels, as demonstrated by the mice receiving Vitamin A.

The mice also exhibited normal function when isolated areas of hippocampus tissue from the Vitamin A deficient mice’s brains were bathed in Vitamin A, “indicating that the nutrient functions in the hippocampus directly, not in other parts of the brain that might influence the important learning region.”

Experiencing Vitamin A deficiency impairs individuals’ ability to learn and retain information. This study overturned a previous study, which found that “mice born without receptors for vitamin A in the hippocampus lacked LTP ability and performed under par in standardized learning tests. Receptors are molecules within brain cells that detect and respond to the vitamin.”  The previous study failed to answer the question of whether or not Vitamin A activity was necessary during embryonic development; the current study proves that removing Vitamin A even from “fully-developed animals impairs learning pathways, and equally important, the effects are reversible.”

Brainjogging works because it activates various brain regions and neurons synchronously.  Vitamin A is essential to activating neurons synchronously.  Brainjogging trains the brain to activate neurons synchronously.  Brainjogging can activate these neurons synchronously even in Vitamin A deficient individuals, but Vitamin A better facilitates individuals’ ability to synchronize neural communication.  Vitamin A deficiency’s effects can be reversed.  Brainjogging encourages individuals to eat foods rich in Vitamin A to enhance one’s LTP and reduce one’s LTD.

Running helps individuals stay physically healthy and improves many individuals’ state of mental health by reducing stress. Research from the Salk Institute proves that running can also enable individuals to grow more new brain cells, when compared to sedentary counterparts.

Researchers divided mice into groups and, for twelve days, gave them a chemical that labels dividing cells.  After the study, “the mice on the move had the most new brain cells, twice as many as mice housed in standard cages,” which did not contain exercise wheels or other physically stimulating toys (Salk Institute).

Salk Professor Fred H. Gage, the study’s senior author, remarked, “The difference was striking. And because we know now that human brains also make new cells, it just might be that running or other vigorous exercise stimulates brain cell production in people as well.”

Gage’s research recently disproved the long-standing neuroscience belief that humans do not gain new brain cells after birth.  His laboratory has shown that “mice raised in what they term ‘enriched environments’ grow more new cells than litter mates housed in standard laboratory cages.”  These enriched environments included numerous variables, including toys, exercise wheels, increased opportunities for social interaction and varied diets.

One postdoctoral fellow in Gage’s laboratory, Henriette van Praag, said, “The present study is an attempt to tease out which type of stimulation is most important.”

The study included a sedentary control group of mice, there were “runners” groups and “swimmers” groups.  The “swimmers” were placed in a shallow pool each day for a brief period.  Additionally, “one of the groups had a learning task to accomplish, which the investigators thought might boost brain cell growth, and the other group simply had ‘free swim’ time.”  Astonishingly, neither group of “swimmers” displayed brain cell numbers comparable to the “runners.”

“We don’t know if it’s the voluntary factor that’s key – that is, the running mice were free to jump on or off the wheel as they liked – or if it’s because the swimmers simply got less exercise,” said Gage.

Gage also noted that learning and completing a specific task may stimulate changes in existing brain cells rather than boosting the development of new ones.  The new cell growth took place in the brain’s hippocampus, which has been linked to learning and memory by many studies.  The mice in the “enriched environments” performed better on learning tests than did their sedentary and swimming counterparts.

Brainjogging changes the brain and increases individuals’ long-term potentiation, or the ability of neurons to be activated synchronously.  Brainjogging also stimulates new neuron growth.  Running, too, as substantiated by the Salk Institute, enables individuals to grow new neurons.  The fact that new cell growth occurs after birth, as proved by Gage’s research, is significant in that individuals do not have to become stagnant in their cognitive development.  Running – and other forms of vigorous exercise – improves one’s cognitive condition.

Fifty researchers from seven countries conducted an extensive soccer research project that studied “physiological, psychological and sociological aspects of recreational soccer and compared it with running” (Science Daily).  Professors Peter Krustrup and Jens Bangsbo from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences oversaw the three year project.  The study followed men, women and children, all divided into soccer, running and control groups.

The study’s results were so startling that the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports published a special edition issue entitled “Football for Health,” containing 14 scientific articles from the soccer project.

Researchers studied the physical effects of soccer training on individuals from ages  9 – 77 that had no previous soccer experience.  Soccer provides “broad-spectred health and fitness effects that are at least as pronounced as for running, and in some cases even better.” As a team sport, soccer may contain positive motivational and social factors that “may facilitate compliance and contribute to the maintenance of a physically active lifestyle.” Studies showed that “soccer training for 2 – 3 hours per week causes significant cardiovascular, metabolic and musculoskeletal adaptations, independent on gender, age or lack of experience with soccer.”

Participants maintained these effects even with decreased training frequency of 1 – 2 hours per week.  The study researchers found that “recreational soccer … appears to be an effective type of training leading to performance improvements and significant beneficial effects to health, including a reduction in the risk of cardiovascular diseases, falls and fractures.”

Soccer provides physical benefits for nearly all who choose to participate in the sport.  It is an intensely healthy promoting activity.  Various benefits also manifest, although they are typically different in male and female groups.  Women experience a greater sense of social capital, as they are included in a group in which they consider themselves and important aspect.  Runners are more focused on their performance as individuals, but soccer players are able to evaluate their performance individually and in relation to teammates.  Men, however, experience less anxiety when playing soccer.  Male study participants “felt motivated, happy and involved to the point where they forgot time and fatigue.”

The significance of this study can hardly be overstated.  It clearly illustrates the necessity of exercising, and not only exercising but preferably exercising within a social framework of sorts.  Diminished anxiety removes unnecessary stress from individuals, which can suppress cognition, and an increased sense of connectivity to others increases one’s overall sense of well being.  Brainjogging encourages students to participate physical activities, especially ones with peers, who provide appropriate role models and build students’ sense of self.  Exercise generally heightens individuals’ quality of life, which allows them to commit themselves to other areas, including academic and social success.