We talk in terms of “use it or lose it” for both the muscles and the brain: if you don’t use your muscles, they will waste; if you don’t use your brain, it may also shrink.
“Our brain is like any other part of our body,” says David Merrill, adult and geriatric psychiatrist and director of the Pacific Brain Health Center in the US state of California.
“‘Use it or lose it’ is not just a hypothesis, it is a fundamental biological fact that is as true for our brains as it is for our muscles or bones.”
More and more, it seems that the two are linked: we cannot see your brain becomes “stronger” – but what you may see in improved muscle tone or body strength could reflect the state of your cognitive health.
Recently, scientists at Monash University, Australia, studied the relationship between muscle volume and brain structure and discovered a link between greater muscle volume in the thigh in midlife and brain volume.