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January 2024
Christopher Mendez
As marathon runners physically push their bodies for hours at a time, a study shows unexpected effects on the brain.
The study, conducted in October 2023 and posted on bioRxiv.org, illustrates how marathon runners gain energy from a fatty brain tissue, known as myelin, to endure such rigorous exercises. Brain scans on endurance athletes were conducted right before a marathon, a few days after the marathon, and several weeks after the marathon. The content of myelin was recorded by using the water between layers of myelin as a proxy. To prevent dehydration from interfering with results, athletes were scanned 2-3 days post-marathon, giving them days to rehydrate.
According to the scans, athletes showed significant losses of myelin after a marathon, evident from the image above. However, the rapid recovery of the lost myelin is something researchers did not expect, as brain tissue usually remains unchanged once created.
As more research was conducted into this phenomenon, it is clear that myelin has a dynamic structure, allowing for a high turn-over rate, explaining the rapid myelin recovery in endurance athletes.
This newfound discovery on myelin can be life-changing as it can be used to treat people who’ve lost myelin due to aging or neurodegenerative disease. However, more research must be conducted to determine why endurance athletes specifically demonstrate such prominent signs of this phenomenon.
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