Cycling and the Brain

More broadly: exercise in the brain, with an emphasis on cycling. There's a neat article in the Nov. 2009 issue of Bicycling about the effects of cycling on ADHD. The focus is on a first-year college student named Adam Leibovitz, in the lead article Riding is My Ritalin, in which Leibovitz is able to control his attention difficulties with long bicycle rides.

There are a few interesting sidebars in the article.

• Christine Mattheis summarizes some scholarly articles on the cognitive benefits of riding (as well as other regular exercise) in Your Brain on Cycling
• Bruce Barcott describes exercise as a tool to combat ADHD in The Exercise Option: Who Knew?
• Mattheis also reviews Michael Wendt's research suggesting the possibility of controlling ADHD with exercise in The Drug-Free Drug

I was intrigued by (summaries of) so much research demonstrating not only that exercise is good for mood but also good for concentration. Barcott quotes Harvard's John Ratey: " 'Regular exercise can raise the baseline levels of both norepinephrine and dopamine,' he says, 'which are the same neurotransmitters that Ritalin and Adderall go after.' "

For More Information

• Barcott, Bruce. Riding is My Ritalin. Bicycling, November 2009, pp.52-59, 93.
  
• Conant-Norville, D.O., Tofler, I.R. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Psychopharmacologic Treatments in the Athlete. (2005) Clinics in Sports Medicine, 24 (4 SPEC. ISS.), pp. 829-843.
  
• Ratey, John and Eric Hagerman. Spark : The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. New York : Little, Brown, 2008.
• Wendt, Michael Stephen. "The Effect of an Activity Program Designed with Intense Physical Exercise on the Behavior of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Children." Dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, 2000.