New findings in the journal Neurology along with previous studies show that staying physically active not only keeps our bodies' healthy, but keeps us mentally strong and maximizes life to the fullest.

At the highest level of activity, even when a specific sign of brain aging was present, it did not predict a person's motor abilities, researchers found.

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"The association between physical activity and motor function in older adults is well-established. What is less understood is the biological basis of that association," said lead author Debra Fleischman of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

For the study, researchers had 167 people wear movement monitors on their wrists for an average of 11 days to measure both exercise and non-exercise activities. The participant's average age was 80.

Researchers conductED 11 tests on movement activities. MRI scans were also used to determine the amount of white matter hyper-intensities in the brain.

Researchers found out that participants were physically active for an average of four hours per week.

People with more white matter hyper-intensities on their MRI scans tended to have poorer motor function. Those that were more active each day tended to have better motor function, but total daily activity was not related to the number of brain spots.

Compared to those at the 50th percent in activity level measured using the movement monitors, those in the top 10 percent had activity equal to walking at 2.5 mph for an additional 1.5 hours each day.

Findings showed that for participants in the top 10 percent with greater amounts of brain damage, their movement scores were not affected. In other words, a higher activity level with greater brain damage was not associated with significantly lower scores.

"These results underscore the importance of efforts to encourage a more active lifestyle in older people to prevent movement problems, which is a major public health challenge. Physical activity may create a 'reserve' that protects motor abilities against the effects of age-related brain damage," Fleischman added.

TagsExercise Helps in Boosting Motor Skills As People Get Older, motor skills, exercise, mri, physically active, physically activity, hyper-intensities, Aging, motor abilities