In many aspects of life where we need to use our brain power, we also tend to sit down: at school, at work, sitting exams or concentrating on a crossword. In a new paper, we explore how prolonged sitting may affect the brain’s fuel supply and have a negative impact on brain health.
The brain is a glucose hungry organ. It weighs about 2% of body mass but demands about 20% of our resting energy requirements, which is mostly in the form of glucose, the primary brain fuel. If this energy supply is disrupted it can impair and even damage brain cells. Therefore, the availability of glucose to brain cells may have implications for brain health.

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If you were to start singing “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” right now, I bet you’d have a hard time keeping your hands still. That’s because most of us who know the song learned it with gestures, and things we learn with physical movement tend to stick.
We can apply that same principle to classroom learning, using movement to enhance learning from preschool all the way through college. Let’s take a look at what the research says about movement-based learning, then explore six different ways you can add more movement to your instruction.

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Animals spend a lot of their lifetime asleep, and scientists have sought to understand the physiological purpose of all that spent time. Every organism with a nervous system needs sleep, and now scientists believe they have identified a reason why it’s so critical. Using a zebrafish model and three-dimensional time-lapse imaging, the researchers found that essential maintenance of DNA occurs in neuronal cells during sleep. The findings, which were reported in Nature Communications, may also indicate why sleep disruption has a significant impact on cognitive function and aging.

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