Lifting Weights May Make You Smarter

It’s true, lifting weights may make you smarter, especially of you are a rat–the animal chosen by scientists to test the hypothesis. New York Times’ health writer Gretchen Reynolds reports that researchers in Brazil found that rats who were persuaded to climb a ladder with weights on their tells performed better on rat intelligence tests that rats who sat around, but then so did rats who did “endurance training” on a treadmill. Reynolds cites another study, done in Japan, that showed that increasing the resistence on rats’ running wheels significantly increased levels of gene activity and B.D.N.F., a growth factor that is thought to help spark neurogenesis  within their brains. And what about us? Human readers will be pleased to learn of research conducted at the Brain Research Center at the University of British Columbia, which found that older women who lifted weights performed significantly better on various tests of cognitive functioning than women who completed toning classes.

Read more from Gretchen Reynolds.