Exercise and the ‘Depression Blocking Gene’

Original post from Nature Medicine:

Based on recent studies, the effects of exercise may extend much farther than  most expect. A simple experiment was conducted on laboratory mice showing a connection between exercise and clinical depression of the brain.

It was noted that, “mice will typically run for the equivalent of 10 km a day. After a week, the researchers compared the gene expression in these well-exercised mice to that of sedentary controls. They found 33 genes that had significantly altered expression after a week’s worth of workouts.”

Among the 33 genes altered, one gene known as Vgf was greatly altered due to the exercise.  In past experiments, Vgf was “identified it as being induced by electroshock therapy, a treatment for extreme depression.”