Physical, mental exercise may improve schizophrenia symptoms

Physical and mental exercise may restore neural connections affected by schizophrenia in young adults and improve cognitive function, according to recent findings.

“It’s looking like exercising the body along with the mind has the potential to alter the course of schizophrenia, especially if the treatment is applied early in the disorder,” study researcher Joseph Ventura, PhD, of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, said in a press release.

Ventura and colleagues assigned 16 young adults with recent first-episode schizophrenia to complete a computerized neurocognitive training course for perception and memory skills for 4 hours per week plus social cognitive training for emotional intelligence for 5 weeks (n = 9) or four sessions of aerobic exercise per week (n = 7).

Cognitive performance among participants who completed brain training and exercise significantly improved, while performance among participants who completed only brain training did not change.

Average completion time on a complex dot-to-dot drawing improved from 37 seconds to 25 seconds among participants who exercised, compared with an average of 22 seconds among individuals without schizophrenia.

On a test measuring challenges in managing emotions in social situations, challenges decreased by half among participants who exercised.

In a second study, 32 individuals with first-episode schizophrenia completed the same computerized neurocognitive training for 4 hours per week. Half of the cohort vigorously exercised in addition to mental training.

Keith Nuechterlein

Performance on several cognitive tests improved threefold among participants who exercised, compared with those who did not.

These improvements were due to brain-derived neurotropic growth factor, which is released during aerobic exercise, according to researchers.

Brain-derived neurotropic growth factor levels increased by 35% among participants who completed cognitive training and exercise, of which half occurred within the first 2 weeks of the study.

Conversely, brain-derived neurotropic growth factor levels did not change among participants who completed only cognitive training.

“Our hope is to prevent the chronic disability that is so common in schizophrenia from ever occurring, and to return individuals with schizophrenia to regular employment, regular schooling and normal friendship patterns, and to have them resume as much of a full life as possible,” study researcher Keith H. Nuechterlein, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in the release. “This kind of computer training and exercise — in combination with antipsychotic medication — might go a long way toward doing that.”