Salk’s Year of Brain Health: Rusty Gage on Exercise, Cognition, and Aging

Why It Matters

The conversation underscores exercise as a scalable, low-cost intervention with direct biological effects on aging brains, informing public health guidance and individual choices to reduce cognitive decline. It reinforces research priorities around lifestyle-based approaches to prolong cognitive health and resilience.

Summary

On a Salk Institute podcast, neuroscientist Rusty Gage explains how regular physical activity supports brain health by boosting circulation, oxygen and nutrient delivery, and increasing mitochondrial capacity that fuels high cerebral energy demand. He links both acute and chronic exercise to improved efficiency in brain metabolism and highlights neurogenesis—the ongoing creation of new neurons from stem cells—as a key mechanism that can be sustained across the lifespan. Gage recommends a balanced routine including stretching, strength work and aerobic activity (he cites running three to four miles most days) to maintain cognitive resilience. The discussion frames exercise as a practical, lifelong strategy to preserve brain function amid extended human longevity.

Original Description

What does it actually mean, biologically, when we say “exercise is good for your brain”? In this special Beyond Lab Walls video podcast episode—part of Salk’s 2026 Year of Brain Health—Salk President Gerald Joyce sits down with renowned neuroscientist Rusty Gage to explore how movement shapes cognitive brain health across a lifetime. Together, they discuss: • What changes in the brain with exercise, and why it matters over time • Adult neurogenesis: how Gage’s research helped overturn the belief that the adult brain can’t generate new neurons • What the evidence suggests about exercise and the survival and integration of new neurons • The key biological signals that carry benefits from an active body to the brain • How exercise intersects with other pillars of brain health, including immune function, metabolism, and sleep • The biggest unanswered questions—and what it will take to solve them This conversation is a window into how foundational science turns familiar advice into real, evidence-based understanding.