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

Why It Matters

Exercise activates biological pathways that maintain brain structure and function, providing a scalable means to reduce age‑related cognitive decline and its associated healthcare burden.

Key Takeaways

• Exercise boosts brain mitochondria, enhancing energy supply for neurons.
• Adult neurogenesis occurs in hippocampus, supporting memory throughout life.
• BDNF protein rises with activity, fostering neuron connections and survival.
• Liver‑derived GPLD1 rises during exercise, protecting blood‑brain barrier.
• Consistent aerobic and strength training expands hippocampal volume up to 15%.

Summary

The Beyond Lab Walls episode spotlights Salk Institute’s Year of Brain Health, featuring neuroscientist Rusty Gage discussing how exercise influences cognition and aging.

Gage explains that physical activity raises cerebral blood flow and multiplies mitochondrial capacity, supplying the brain’s high energy demand. Chronic aerobic training can enlarge the hippocampus by roughly 15% and sustains adult neurogenesis, a process that creates new neurons essential for memory storage.

Key molecular players include BDNF, a protein that spikes during exercise to enhance synaptic connections and neuron survival, and GPLD1, a liver‑derived factor that rises with activity, protecting the blood‑brain barrier and potentially supporting neurogenesis.

The conversation positions regular, balanced exercise—stretching, strength work, and aerobic runs—as a practical, non‑pharmacologic strategy to preserve brain health across the lifespan, offering a scalable approach for individuals and policymakers to combat cognitive decline.

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.

Learn more about Salk’s Year of Brain Health: www.salk.edu/brain-health

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