My latest piece of reading comes from an article by Richard Powers pulling together research by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The article opens with the statement that: “Dancing…increases cognitive activity at all ages.”
The initial research, however, was based on a group of senior citizens, 75 years and older, to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Of the various activities used in the study dancing was the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia with a 76% risk reduction.
This, according to neurologist Dr. Robert Katzman, is because dancing increases neuronal synapses and “we increase our mental capacity by exercising our cognitive processes.”
Dancing integrates several brain functions at once (kinesthetic, rational, social and emotional) increasing neural connectivity. During dance one must make continuous split-second decisions and this is the key to maintaining cognitive abilities.
aislingrcs 