Research Hit: Dancing the Blues Away

Dancing in Parkinson’s patients changes brain connectivity and decreases depression

Well, we should all know that dancing is good for you!

Yes, it combines many elements such as exercise, music, coordination, and also social contact. But to what degree it is positive needs a study, and Karolina Bearss et al. investigated the long-term impacts of dance classes.

And how did they do this?

They followed a cohort of 34 (23 with Parkinson’s and 11 healthy controls) over 8 months. These had a weekly dance class and their depression levels were measured after each class. Most participants also underwent brain scanning up to four times (a minimum of twice to be included in the study).

And what did they find?

First they found that each single dance class improved depression levels (not by much but enough to be measured and considered significant). That’s already great news.

What’s more this was also cumulative continually improving over the 8 months.

The brain scanning was also fascinating. The researchers zoomed in on an area called the subcallosal cingulate gyrus (SCG) because this is associated with depression. In a subset of participants, changes in…