I do MRI work, and my gut is that none of the claims about dance vs. exercise would replicate. The behavioral data suggests that activity of some type will improve cognitive function (main effects of time). Such beneficial effects of activity on the brain have been shown before, and this is generally accepted. However, the authors' behavioral data doesn't show any difference between the dance vs. exercise groups. This means that the study is overall off to a pretty bad start if their goal is to study dance vs. exercise differences...
The brain data claims to show that the dance vs. exercise groups showed different levels of improvement in various regions. However, the brain effects are tiny and are probably just random noise (I'm referring to those red spots, which are very small and almost certainly don't reflect proper correction for multiple hypotheses given that the authors effectively tested 1000s or 10000s of different areas). The authors' claims about BDNF are supported by a p-value of p = .046, and having main conclusions hinge on p-values of p > .01 usually means the conclusions are rubbish.
In general, my priors on "we can detect subtle changes in brain matter over a 6-week period" are also very low. Perhaps, a study with this sample size could show that activity of some kind influences the brain over such a short length, but I am extremely skeptical that this type of study could detect differences between dance vs. exercise effects.
I agree that the sample size might be a bit small so it could be noise, but the study did went 6-month not 6-weeks.
And there are findings like these https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Or it could be a problem of seeking statistical detection of any difference whatsoever versus detecting a practically meaningful difference... a type III error (answering the wrong question).
I don't have any science behind this, but it makes sense that training more complex motions would trigger greater brain improvements.
Dance vs basketball or some other high coordination/skill activity might have less disparity than say dance vs. exercise bike.
Speaking as someone who tried to take a tap class as an adult, only to discover it was for people who were already experienced dancers: yes, dance training is vastly more complex than exercise.
Update: what absolutely killed me is that we would run through a complex step two or three times, and we were expected to be able to practice at home. I didn't understand what we were doing while we were doing it, there was no way I could reproduce it.
I think gp’s point was that “exercise” encompasses a range from stationary bike to olympic lifts. Dancing is on the same end of that range as olympic lifting or a sport like basketball insofar as they all require intentional practice.
In fact dance based exercise like Zumba, or boxing even, is very helpful with folks suffering Parkinson’s because it require multiple tasks be processed at once - rhythm, hand, foot, observation of the lead. This induces plasticity which is crucial in staving Parkinson’s decline. So I find it strange to assert exercise alone is the beneficial component as it’s clear in pathological situations where increasing plasticity yields slower declines dance and complex exercise that requires many integrated tasks is superior to simple exercise.
A book I read 'spark' by John J Ratey, discussed this in a few chapters. Cardio/Running at 70% maximum heart rate lead to brain plasticity and even allowing new synapses to make connections and grow. However, he did argue an exercise that also required concentration e.g dancing, basketball, skateboarding would have better results.
It's absolutely crazy, that we misunderstand how our brains are intended to work in the old world. Our brains are for movement, the ability to think, plan and utilize tools appears to have been a happy accident that allowed our ancestor an advantage in survival.
brains be braining.
I would like to see a comparison with other types of physical exercise that contain an element of continuous learning. Wrestling, BJJ, even boxercise, crossfit and such. Since the argument seems to be specifically about learning new routines and how that impacts neuroplasticity, dance vs other more cognitively challenging workouts would be an interesting comparison.
That’s really interesting, bjj is essentially physical problem solving with dire consequences
"Regarding cognition, both groups improved in attention and spatial memory, but no significant group differences emerged."
So, the dance group showed increase volume of brain matter. Is there a benefit to having the extra brain volume, even if it doesn't lead to improved cognition?
Is it possible that increased volume just helped them become better dancers?
I got into dance a few years ago, and N=1 sure, but the big changes I observed as a result were improvements in proprioception, balance, sense of tempo, and I also gained the ability to deconstruct music in my head, and listen to different parts of it (e.g. only pay attention to the guitar or the drums or the vocals).
Like does this make me better at programming? Probably not. But the skills you gain do have other usages outside of dance, and honestly also kind of enrich life in general.
Cognition and memory are easily measurable brain functions but are not the exclusive function of the brain. As a conserving machine a healthy brain building volume is indicative of improvement in some function otherwise it wouldn’t bother building the volume.
Musical cognition is loosely connected to attention (maybe disconnected entirely by this metric, music seems special) and spatial memory is irrelevant. So "better dancers" seems a bit myopic, they might be improving their understanding of rhythm and melody in a more general sense.
(IMO the headline-level conclusion of this study is unsurprising - dancing is far more cognitively demanding than gym exercise!)
> Is there a benefit to having the extra brain volume, even if it doesn't lead to improved cognition?
ever seen megamind?
One dancer-and-programmer friend of mine invented the below thinking, after i introduced him into the "relation is an object" paradigm in software..:
When movement becomes dance?
Dance is the "relation" between movement and meaning. The key is whether someone can put it / sense it .
someone = a dancer or the-other-kind-of-dancer-called-spectator
meaning = very-very abstract. Like, even concentration can be meaningI think the difference in outcomes is likely to be down to "continuous learning of new movement patterns and choreographies" vs "participants performed the same exercises repeatedly ... We avoided combined arm and leg movements in order to keep coordinative demands low".
That said, I think dance is great.
That said, dance is a really fun way to package repetitive movements. And if younger people did more of it, the men on this site would spend less time bitching about how hard it is to meet women. *cough*
Yes, you will “meet” more women by dancing than by playing games on your computer. That doesn’t necessarily mean you will make any meaningful connections.
Simply going places and interacting with people will also help you meet women. In fact, I think you’d sooner find a date by becoming a grocery store employee than a dancer, because you’re more likely to be having conversations with the people you meet.
Dancing, especially where you are learning, is not really socializing.
The structure of our modern society really does make it more difficult to meet new people. Women complain too, not just men.
Dance requires balance and often involves social interaction, while lots of physical exercise does not. Balance and more precisely imbalance is a good way to stimulate adrenaline in the brain, which can accelerate learning. Claude Shannon, fwiw, loved unicycles.
"Fifty-two seniors (25 males; 27 females) aged 63–80 years were then randomly assigned to the experimental dance group (DG) and the control sport group (SG) controlling for age, MMSE status and physical fitness." I wonder if these findings remain true for young or middle aged adults.
> For the present exploratory study, we designed an especially challenging dance program in which our elderly participants constantly had to learn novel and increasingly difficult choreographies. This six-month-long program was compared to conventional fitness training matched for intensity.
The result seems bloody obvious to me as a dancer. Dance is exercise. And this wasn't just dance, they were learning moves and choreography. Like, no duh, teaching people new and complicated things increases neuroplasticity! According to the quote there, the activities were matched in physical intensity and one treatment added a significant mental component versus the control.
Compare dance to rowing, lifting, spinning etc. Those activities are regularly accomplished by a brainless motor. That such activities induce neuroplasticity is cool, but it's no shock that more enriching activities are better for the brain.
I think it's obvious that a younger person's brain would be more improved by this class than your ordinary seniors athletics program. I'd be more inclined to compare with other low-impact competitive sport: badminton, table tennis, etc. Like dance, those require full-body coordination, planning, reflexes, etc.
I think that’s why I prefer exercise with some level of freedom. Free weights feel more engaging than machines. A fast hike up a mountain feels better than running on a treadmill indoors.
I don't find this hard to believe. I'm no brain scientist, but dance puts together several senses and proprioception: music, rhythm, one's position in 3D space, balance, and physical exercise...
Anecdotal bur my ex's grandmother would do swing dancing as a hobby with her husband and later when they retired at like 50, they would swing dance like 3-5 times a week at home. Her grandmother is now 102 years old and up until recently was the sharpest, and wittiest resident at her care home despite being the oldest. Her hearing is great, her eyesight is great. The only things going slowly are her short term memory and ability to walk but she still does with her walker.
My grandmother kept a flower garden, it got smaller as she got older, but she made it to 113. Maybe the gardening helped keep her going.
She was in a home for the last year (maybe two), lived on her own before that. She was sharp, but her hearing was poor.
> Dancing compared to conventional fitness activity led to larger volume increases in more brain areas, including the cingulate cortex, insula, corpus callosum and sensorimotor cortex. Only dancing was associated with an increase in plasma BDNF levels. Regarding cognition, both groups improved in attention and spatial memory, but no significant group differences emerged casual.
Probably some styles of martial arts would (do imho) work well then. Disclaimer ; did not RTFA.
Edit: +styles of
Depends on the martial art: head injuries would complicate that analysis; tai chi isn't terribly aerobic, etc.
Yes, added styles there. Kata's can be quite dance-y depending on the style.
Also, to be contrary old dude into martial arts all his life, I don't really consider many head bashing 'styles' now to be 'arts'. Martial, sure.
> Also, to be contrary old dude into martial arts all his life, I don't really consider many head bashing 'styles' now to be 'arts'.
Which ones would you consider to be "arts", and worth getting into?
I was recently thinking that I would like to get back into martial arts, but having done taekwondo in the past, I'm absolutely not interested in going back to any form of bashing impact..
Boxing is more dance than katas
Boxing is ballroom dance; katas are choreography.
My hope is that DDR is a form of dance training.
Obligatory mention of the fact that the best exercise is the one you’ll do, regardless of what it is. Dance might be better for your brain than cycling, but neither helps anything if you give up on them after a few months. So find the (best) exercise you’ll actually keep up with, and keep up with that. Even if it’s only walking a few blocks a day, that’s better than nothing.
I found the Les Mill’s XR Dance to be a great workout app in VR.
https://www.meta.com/experiences/app/6212696172191478
The research results aren’t surprising since dance is more complicated than something like HIIT. Martial arts training would likely have a similar effect unless sparring involved lots of hits to the head.
Balance training (standing on a ball type thing) also is supposed to help ADHD.
This (intuitively) makes sense, since standing on a ball requires full focus, can't really get distracted.
Can you link anything on the subject? Sounds like a simple device you could own at home and spend 10m a day on balancing.
Really don't even need a device. I practice balancing on one leg with my eyes closed while brushing my teeth every morning (I've progressively made it harder over time). I mostly do this to keep up my balance skills for mountain biking and it's helped quite a bit, especially during winter when I ride less.
You mentioned progressively making it harder, I’ve seen the following strategies to make balancing more difficult. Combining them all can be challenging:
1. Arms crossed on your chest 2. Eyes closed 3. Swinging your head left and right, like an exaggerated “no”
.... in the elderly.
embodied cognition is definitely an interesting concept to explore. I know I get really interesting thoughts when I go for a walk.
...in mice
That would be igNobel worthy