Most of the research linking exercise to better brain health has focused on aerobic training. But some studies point to additional benefits from strength and resistance training as well.

Scientists in Brazil performed an animal study on three groups of laboratory rodents. For eight weeks, the animals either performed strength-training (tiny weights were tied to their tails as they climbed up small ladders); aerobic training through running on treadmills; or remained sedentary, sitting in their cages and engaging in minimal physical activity. (That was the control group.)

Both the rodents in the aerobic group and the strength-training group experienced improvements in learning and memory abilities, and had higher levels of BDNF, which lowers the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

The sedentary control group showed no improvements in cognition and experienced no BDNF increases.

Related animal studies by Japanese scientists showed that increasing the levels of resistance training actually activates or triggers the animals’ DNA to produce more BDNF.

This demonstrates that resistance training switches on genes that stimulate neuronal activity.

Human studies also show that strength training supports brain health. Dr. Teresa Liu-Ambrose and her colleagues at the University of British Columbia demonstrated that weightlifters enjoy greater memory performance than control subjects who didn’t lift weights but only stretched.

Such studies have demonstrated that strength training improves complex reasoning and attention skills — functions controlled by the brain’s frontal lobe. Scientists are not yet sure how strength training improves cognitive health, but we know that lifting weights or working with resistance bands improves the heart’s efficiency in pumping blood to the brain.

When people do these exercises, they must also focus on technique and form, which provides an additional type of mental exercise that may protect the brain as well.