Our brains change by the millisecond with every sound and movement. Everything from exercise to sleep shifts its function. But observing and studying those changes in real time, and over a long period, is rare in science. Instead, researchers often rely on isolated snapshots of brain activity — potentially leaving crucial details about the inner workings of our brains out. But a unique new study attempts to start filling in these gaps.
A paper out this week from researchers in Finland tracked brain activity over the course of 5 months and found that factors like sleep and exercise might have compounding changes in the brain that endure for longer that researchers thought. This study’s results published today in the journal PLoS Biology.
Rather than gather data from many people during a single moment, the team examined nearly continuous information from a single participant. That participant also happened to be the paper’s lead author Ana María Triana, a doctoral researcher in the computer science department at Aalto University.
The researchers analyzed multiple health and behavioral metrics from Triana over the course of 133 days, or 5 months. She wore various wearable devices and a smartphone to track everything from sleep to mood. She also underwent 30 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans and completed 5 mood questionnaires every day. The fMRIs measures brain activity by detecting blood flow, so all this data paints a more comprehensive picture of how behaviors and feelings fit into brain function.
Specifically, they found that reduced physical activity one day related to decreased fronto-parietal network integration, which can impact working memory. Further, they found associations between brain connectivity and both recent (within the past three days) and less recent (within the past 10 days) bouts of exercise. “These findings suggest that physical activity levels have both immediate and delayed effects on brain networks, which supports the idea that regular physical activity might be crucial for maintaining optimal brain network integration and communication over time,” according to the paper.
Because this study looked at just one person — and the subject was a study author at that — this research would need to be replicated again, and with more study subjects, before any conclusions can be drawn. But the results hint at the fact that various factors from environmental to behavioral and physiological all exert influence our brain whether we realize it or not.
