{"id":173,"date":"2013-04-29T19:38:20","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T23:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=173"},"modified":"2020-02-07T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T14:30:00","slug":"the-effects-of-running-a-marathon-on-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2013\/04\/29\/the-effects-of-running-a-marathon-on-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Effects of Running a Marathon on Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nyc-marathon\"<\/a>Regular exercise is known to have many advantages.  In addition to the obvious physical benefits such as reducing the risks of heart disease and obesity, it can also benefit the brain.  Regular aerobic exercise releases endorphins, a naturally occurring opiate, to improve an athlete\u2019s mood.  It also increases cognitive function in healthy adults, including improved working memory and executive functioning (Guiney & Machado, 2013).   Marathon running, however, is above and beyond typical regular aerobic exercise; it is considered the ultimate test of fitness.   The marathon always concludes the Olympic games, seeming to symbolize the pinnacle of athleticism. But to complete a marathon, runners put their bodies through the ringer.  They run more mileage than the human body was probably ever designed to run, all in preparation for the 26.2-mile race.  Though regular exercise has positive effects on both the body and the mind, could running a marathon actually be too much exercise?  Beyond sore muscles, marathon runners often experience tendonitis, torn muscles and ligaments, sprains, stress fractures, shin splints, and other injuries.  But might there also be negative cognitive effects of running a marathon?<\/p>\n

A study by Teal S. Eich and Janet Metcalfe (2009) from Columbia University investigated the effects of running a marathon on explicit and implicit memory. Implicit memory is knowledge from previously learned skills, such as using language or riding a bike, whereas explicit memory involves the conscious recollection of a specific moment in the past, such as recalling where you spent Thanksgiving last year.  The researchers tested these aspects of cognition because explicit memory deficits have been linked to high levels of cortisol in men (Schwegler et al., 2010), which occur in high-stress situations such as extreme physical activity.  So potentially, they hypothesized, running a marathon might severely impair explicit memory.<\/p>\n

Additionally, they wondered about marathon running\u2019s effects on implicit memory, because individuals with brain damage and amnesia show deficits in explicit memory while maintaining implicit memory.  So might marathon running make an individual show a similar cognitive state as an individual with brain damage?<\/p>\n

Eich and Metcalfe tested a group of marathon runners with explicit and implicit memory tasks immediately after running a marathon.  They also tested a control group of marathon runners 1-3 days before running a marathon, in order to control for fitness, socioeconomic status, or other factors that might differ between people who run marathons and those who do not.  Results of the study showed that immediately after completing a marathon, athletes have simultaneously heightened implicit memory, but impaired explicit memory.<\/p>\n

The cognitive effects of running a marathon are somewhat similar to having damage to your hippocampus, the area of the brain where long-term memories are formed; for both situations, implicit and explicit memories dissociate.  It is almost as if such strenuous exercise creates temporary brain damage.<\/p>\n

It is understandable that explicit memory is diminished, because the stresses of a marathon likely deplete the body and brain of much of its resources and energy.  Oddly, though, not only does implicit memory not decrease; it actually increases.  It is not entirely clear why this phenomenon occurs.  Why would athletic stress hinder one\u2019s ability to recall what happened yesterday, but increase one\u2019s ability to ride a bike?  Perhaps there is an evolutionary, survival-based backing behind this phenomenon.   For example, heightened implicit memory after strenuous exercise, such as running from a carnivorous animal, might be an adaptation that helped primitive mankind\u2019s survival.  While most explicit cognitive resources might have been exhausted in order to avoid becoming something\u2019s dinner, implicit memory might be all that remains, and therefore become more important.  Yet, survival processing has been shown to increase explicit memory but have no effect on implicit memory (Tse & Altarriba, 2010).<\/p>\n

Running 26.2 miles is not a simple or natural task, and unsurprisingly alters brain function.  Does the fact that it temporarily diminishes explicit memory and dissociates explicit and implicit memories mean that such rigorous activity as actually bad for you?  Before such conclusive statements can be made against marathon running, more research needs to be conducted.  For example, how long do the deficits in explicit memory last?  Does running multiple marathons increase the deficit? And are these deficits significant enough to impair one\u2019s daily life?  Still, the likelihood that the consequences of marathon running outweigh the benefits seems slim.<\/p>\n

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Click here for the full article<\/a><\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Eich, T. S., Metcalfe, J. (2009). Effects of the stress of marathon running on implicit and explicit memory.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16 <\/i>(3), 475-479. doi:10.3758\/PBR.16.3.475<\/p>\n

Guiney, H., & Machado, L. (2013). Benefits of regular aerobic exercise for executive functioning in healthy populations.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20<\/i>(1), 73-86. doi:http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.3758\/s13423-012-0345-4<\/p>\n

Schwegler, K., Ettlin, D., Buser, I., Klaghofer, R., Goetzmann, L., Buddeberg, C., . . . de Quervain, D. J.. (2010). Cortisol reduces recall of explicit contextual pain memory in healthy young men. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 35<\/i>(8), 1270-1273. doi:http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1016\/j.psyneuen.2010.02.011<\/p>\n

Tse, C., & Altarriba, J. (2010). Does survival processing enhance implicit memory? Memory & Cognition, 38<\/i>(8), 1110-1121. doi:http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.3758\/MC.38.8.1110<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular exercise is known to have many advantages.  In addition to the obvious physical benefits such as reducing the risks of heart disease and obesity, it can also benefit the brain.  Regular aerobic exercise releases endorphins, a naturally occurring opiate, to improve an athlete\u2019s mood.  It also increases cognitive function in healthy adults, including improved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80215],"tags":[129793,129795,129794],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5423,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/5423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}