Psychology At Work: My Big Fat Hippocampus

The Hippo Campus is a veterinary college in Central Africa. It's also a region of the brain involved in mood disorders -- and it's smaller in depressed people.

Here's why: stress increases hormones (like cortisol) which inhibit cell multiplication in the hippocampus. Prozac causes an increase in cell proliferation - which seems to work against depression. So does exercise.

Mice with access to a running wheel have twice as many multiplying cells in their brains as mice which get no exercise.

So, should you put a gym in the office? Maybe not a gym, but a running wheel can't hurt. And how about some sunflower seeds while you're at it.

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