{"id":231609,"date":"2026-02-19T02:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/scientists-find-a-mechanism-showing-how-exercise-protects-the-brain"},"modified":"2026-02-19T02:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:11:12","slug":"scientists-find-a-mechanism-showing-how-exercise-protects-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/scientists-find-a-mechanism-showing-how-exercise-protects-the-brain","title":{"rendered":"Scientists find a mechanism showing how exercise protects the brain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-find-a-mechanism-showing-how-exercise-protects-the-brain.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered a mechanism that could explain how exercise improves cognition by shoring up the brain\u2019s protective barrier. With age, the network of blood vessels\u2014called the blood\u2013brain barrier\u2014gets leaky, letting harmful compounds enter the brain. This causes inflammation, which is associated with cognitive decline and is seen in conditions like Alzheimer\u2019s disease. The research is <a href=\"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S009286742600111X\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal <i>Cell<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Six years ago, the team identified a brain-rejuvenating enzyme called GPLD1 that mice produced in their livers when they exercised. But they couldn\u2019t understand how it worked, because it cannot get into the brain.<\/p>\n<p>The new study answers that question. Researchers discovered that GPLD1 was working through another protein called TNAP. As the mice age, the cells that form the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2024-03-blood-aging-brain-dementia.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">blood-brain barrier<\/a> accumulate TNAP, which makes it leaky. But when mice exercise, their livers produce GPLD1. It travels to the vessels that surround the brain and trims TNAP off the cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered a mechanism that could explain how exercise improves cognition by shoring up the brain\u2019s protective barrier. With age, the network of blood vessels\u2014called the blood\u2013brain barrier\u2014gets leaky, letting harmful compounds enter the brain. This causes inflammation, which is associated with cognitive decline and is seen in conditions like [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1495,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-health","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}