Exercise-Induced Hippocampal Neurogenesis

Aerobic exercise is one of the most consistently replicated drivers of adult neurogenesis: elevated heart rate for a sustained period raises circulating BDNF, which supports the birth, survival and circuit-integration of new granule neurons in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. This simulator renders a simplified 3D hippocampal formation and lets you set workout intensity, session length and weekly frequency; each simulated week, new neurons are born at a rate set by a saturating BDNF-dependent curve, immature cells (glowing green) either survive their roughly four-week critical window or are pruned, and the resulting surviving population drives live estimates of hippocampal volume change and a spatial-memory score — the same relationship documented in Cotman & Berchtold's exercise-BDNF work and Erickson et al.'s year-long aerobic-training MRI study.