UGA’s graduate programs in secondary education, which include science education, are perennially ranked among the Top 10 in the nation in U.S. News and World Report’s annual “Best Graduate Schools” survey.

University of Georgia College of Education faculty members were ranked among the most productive faculty in science education research published during the first decade of the 21^st century, according to a study in the March 2013 edition of the Journal of Education and Learning.

UGA science education faculty were ranked third in the nation in research productivity from 2000-2009 when data were adjusted for the acceptance rates of the four top science education journals studied and fourth when data were adjusted for raw number of publications.

UGA science education faculty published 55 articles in the top four international science education journals during the 2000s. Only science education faculty at the University of Michigan (84), Indiana University (66) and Purdue University (59) published more during that period.

UGA’s graduate programs in secondary education, which include science education, are perennially ranked among the Top 10 in the nation in U.S. News and World Report’s annual “Best Graduate Schools” survey.

Oliver

“Science education faculty members have been leaders in the field dating back to the 1970s,” said Steve Oliver, professor and science education program coordinator during much of the last decade. “Those of us who replaced those earlier individuals came of age in the 2000s and wanted to participate fully in our professional field. A number of individuals who are no longer at UGA—Tom Koballa, Lynn Bryan and Carolyn Wallace—were very important to the success we had in those years.”

Today, UGA’s faculty members in science education continue research to develop new and better methods for instruction to enhance each student’s education from elementary school through doctoral studies.

Shen

For instance, researcher Ji Shen is pursuing a synthesis of the achievements and challenges of modeling-based instruction (MBI) in K-12 science education over the last three decades to identify the most effective MBI practices for successful student learning, with an emphasis on technology-enhanced ones.

Shen is directing another study to design and implement technology-enhanced formative assessments to help college students integrate scientific knowledge and solve complex problems across disciplines. Specifically, researchers are targeting fundamental biological processes in physiological contexts that are closely related to physics. The assessments will be administered to college students enrolled in introductory physics, biology, physiology and science education courses.

Oliver is one of five UGA researchers leading a five-year, multi-discipline, partnership project among scientists and science educators at UGA, science teachers in high school and the national Biological Sciences Curriculum Study to create and evaluate curricular materials that use highly interactive 3-D models and animations of physiological processes that could set new standards in science education.

Crawford

Luft

Two new senior faculty members who joined the College of Education in 2012—Barbara Crawford and Julie Luft—both bring groundbreaking research projects to UGA.

Crawford’s research focuses on how to move the essence of inquiry into the science classroom, how to support teachers in engaging students in authentic science, and how to alter and shape views of science in students generally underrepresented in the sciences (including English language learners).

Luft, the inaugural Athletic Association Professor of Mathematics and Science Education, was named the 2012 Outstanding Mentor of the Year by the Association for Science Teacher Education last fall.

Her current research focuses on beginning secondary science teachers and the development of their knowledge and instructional practices during their first five years in the classroom. Her work reveals the importance of content knowledge during induction programs and suggests new roles for science educators in higher education. In 2012, research from this project received the Journal of Research in Science Teaching Award for the most significant publication of the year.

Research published in science education journals impacts a wide range of areas, ranging from teacher education to curriculum development to assessment to policy. This study identifies the places where science educators are producing new knowledge, which can inform faculty, current and future graduate students, teachers of science, and policymakers for United States K-12 science, according to authors Lloyd Barrow and Nai-en Tang, both of the University of Missouri.

See abstract, link to full text of the science education research productivity study:
www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jel/article/view/25011

Bishop and Conner are working on separate five-year studies funded by two NSF awards totaling $1.2 million.

What makes mathematics difficult for some students to learn? Two University of Georgia College of Education researchers believe the answer may lie in the way mathematical reasoning is communicated in classrooms.

Assistant professors Jessica Bishop and AnnaMarie Conner, both in the department of mathematics and science education, are working on separate five-year studies documenting student-teacher interactions and assessing other classroom factors that may influence mathematics learning. Two CAREER Awards from the National Science Foundation that total $1,207,853 fund the studies.

A former high school mathematics teacher, Bishop often wondered what aspects of her teaching made a real difference in student learning. Much of the time in math classrooms was spent talking, she noticed, but not all of the talk was “mathematically productive.”

Bishop

“What elements of mathematics conversations encourage students to generate, explain and defend mathematical ideas and to make connections between concepts?” asked Bishop. “We need to be able to identify what it is that teachers and students are doing in productive mathematics conversations so we can better support practicing and prospective teachers.”

Over the next five years, Bishop will use an NSF CAREER award of $672,846 to systematically document the small details of student-teacher exchanges in elementary and middle school math classes. She will analyze shifts in student-teacher interactions across different curricular topics, grade levels, school periods and teachers, and in schools with student populations from a wide variety of backgrounds.

“This project should help determine the common elements of successful communication and describe the teaching patterns that correspond to success,” said Bishop.

Conner will use NSF funding of $535,007 over five years to observe and document how college mathematics education majors and new teachers help students create and critique mathematical arguments, or proofs. Conner will study a learning process known as collective argumentation, whereby students—with teacher guidance—discover ways to answer particular mathematical questions.

Connor

“Prospective teachers often come to class believing that math involves memorizing rules and the teacher’s role is to communicate those rules,” said Conner. “If a teacher can foster student involvement in creating mathematical arguments and proofs, however, students learn something more valuable: reasoning skills.”

“Creating and critiquing mathematical arguments is an increasingly important part of mathematics classes,” said Conner. “This will lead to students having better mathematical preparation for college.”

Conner’s research team will follow college mathematics education majors through their coursework and into their first two years of teaching. The team will record how novice educators’ support for collective argumentation evolves over time, said Conner. In addition, the research team and educators will use the data they collect to develop more effective ways to support this learning method.

“These projects address critical areas in the teaching and learning of mathematics, particularly in the area of discourse,” said Denise Spangler, head of the department of mathematics and science education. “We are very excited to have two CAREER Awards in the same year.”

The NSF CAREER Award is among the most competitive grants available from the National Science Foundation. The acceptance rate for NSF CAREER proposals submitted over the last four years to the directorate for education and human resources, which oversees Bishop’s and Conner’s projects, averages 10 to 13 percent.

Kevin McCully, a professor of exercise science in the College of Education’s department of kinesiology, is leading the biomarker study.  UGA Photo by Andrew Tucker

A new optical method using light to measure muscle energy production in people trying to recover from debilitating injuries and diseases has been developed by University of Georgia kinesiology researchers, and it could save patients 100 times the cost of getting the same measurements through magnetic resonance imaging.

Kevin McCully, professor of exercise science in the College of Education’s department of kinesiology, said he and his team of researchers have a patent pending and recently published a paper on the method. They hope use of the method will expand the ability to test diseased and injured populations.

The work is part of a collaboration between UGA, Georgia Health Sciences University, and Biogen Idec, a Cambridge, Mass., pharmaceutical company looking to develop new drugs to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

McCully recently received a $263,000 contract from Biogen Idec to conduct a biomarker study of skeletal muscle energy metabolism on healthy volunteers and patients with ALS. He is exploring the feasibility of using magnetic resonance spectroscopy and the new optical near-infrared spectroscopy as biomarkers of skeletal muscle energy metabolism in clinical trials in healthy volunteers and patients with neuromuscular disorders, such as ALS.

A biomarker, or biological marker, is a measurement or test substance used as an indicator of a biological state. It is a characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention. It is used in many scientific fields.

“One of the main purposes of the Exercise Vascular Biology Laboratory is to develop noninvasive ‘biomarkers,’ so this is an exciting partnership for us,” said McCully. “When I came to UGA we didn’t have the resources available for me, as we didn’t have a magnet. With the establishment of the Bioimaging Research Center (BIRC) in the Coverdell building and the ability to perform multinuclear spectroscopy, my lab was able to establish our muscle mitochondrial measurements. What we really worked on was the ability to test people with injuries and diseases, such as spinal cord injury and now ALS.”

The results of this study evaluating the new optical method as well as the more traditional multinuclear spectroscopy approach will lead to the improvement of the quality of drug trials to treat patients with muscle and nerve diseases, according to McCully.

“One example is a drug that was created to treat patients by improving energy metabolism, and they only found out later that the drug actually didn’t improve energy metabolism,” he said. “Our testing will make sure that drugs that are supposed to improve energy production in nerves and muscles, actually do that.”

McCully said UGA researchers are hoping to expand this study, and anticipate that there will be more studies in the future. The project represents the start of collaboration between UGA researchers and drug companies around ‘biomarkers’ for testing drugs.  There are other related projects that researchers hope to start in the biomarker area.

“There are some potentially important treatments for nerve-related diseases that involve reduced energy production,” said McCully. “It’s hard to detect improvements in nerve energy production, but much easier to detect muscle energy production. So we can use muscle measurements to tell us whether the nerves would also benefit.”

Article: “Noninvasive evaluation of skeletal muscle mitochondrial capacity with near-infrared spectroscopy: correcting for blood volume changes” (Terence E. Ryan, Melissa L. Erickson, Jared T. Brizendine, Hui-Ju Young and Kevin K.McCully) Published in Journal of Applied Physiology, 113: 175-183, May 10, 2012
http://tinyurl.com/ugabiomarker

James

University of Georgia College of Education researcher Jennifer Hauver James is leading a two-year study in a local third grade classroom which she hopes will determine what it means to prepare students for civic participation in a 21st century world.

“The need to name 21st century skills, thoughtfully engage teaching toward their development and measure the impact of our work is real,” said James, an associate professor in the department of elementary and social studies education. “Our efforts to address this need will likely benefit not only the students in our focus classroom, but other students and teachers throughout the school and district, offering research-based recommendations for policy and practice.”

The study is funded by a $40,000 grant from the Spencer Foundation. There are two aims of the research project:

• to develop a theoretical framework and corresponding measures for capturing and understanding elementary students’ 21st century skills;
• to identify specific pedagogical methods that foster elementary students’ 21st century skill development.

The research team’s framework for 21^st century skill building focuses on three dimensions of students’ civic learning: cognitive (creative thinking, meta-cognition, reasoning and critical thinking), interpersonal (perspective taking, symbiotic relationship building, and collaboration) and intrapersonal (self-esteem, self -knowledge, and efficacy).

“We call our framework ‘Head, Heart and Hands’ – a name we adopted so that we can talk with children about our work,” said James. “The Head is cognitive. What do I know? How do I know it? What do/can I not know? What does it mean to know? The Heart is intrapersonal. Who am I? What do I care about? What are my strengths? What role do/can I play in my community? How can I express myself? The Hands are interpersonal. Who are the people in my community? How do I know them? What does it mean to be in community with others?”

In the process of conceptual refinement, the researchers plan to develop a variety of qualitative and quantitative measures for capturing students’ understanding across time and space, and to identify effective strategies for fostering children’s civic growth within the context of the school day.

James, the on-site instructor and principal researcher, will collaborate with Barrow Elementary teacher researchers Glennda Shealey and Rita Foretich. Shealey teaches 3^rd grade and Foretich teaches art education. Jessica Kobe and Chang Liu, UGA graduate students in the college’s department of elementary and social studies education, will serve as research assistants.

The project will involve a classroom of about 21 students at David C. Barrow Elementary School, one of several schools participating in the Clarke County Professional Development School District.

Several UGA professors are trying to tackle that exact question by looking at the psychological factors behind compensation during exercise programs. For example, people often overeat to reward themselves for working out.

“They don’t have a good sense of the calories being burned versus how much they can ingest,” says Michael Schmidt, a kinesiology professor and leader of the study said in an October 3 story in The Flagpole.  “It’s much easier to ingest calories than burn them.”

McCullick

Chepyator-Thomson, a professor in the sport management program, and McCullick, professor and program coordinator of physical education, will deliver papers as part of an invited symposium titled, “School Physical Education Curricula for Future Generations: Global Patterns? Global Lessons?”

Along with speakers from New Zealand, South Korea, Germany, Australia, England and Turkey, McCullick will discuss the place of physical education in today’s schools. His presentation, Re-Thinking the Place of PE in American Schooling, will propose a rationale for and a plan for PE to reposition itself in the school curriculum so that it can make contributions (perhaps even more that it currently does) and remove itself from the divided debate on what public schooling should be.

Chepyator-Thomson

Chepyator-Thomson’s presentation titled, Public Policy and Physical Education in Post-Colonial Africa, explores how teaching movement forms in physical education is lost to the politics of knowledge in the schools. This is revealed through the ranking of subjects, the lack of indistinguishable characteristics between physical education and school sport, the presence of negative school practices, and the general understanding of school sport as an agent of social engineering and economic development, as well as an organ for the promotion of a nation’s international image abroad as in the Olympic Games. She will conclude her presentation by describing “a way forward for physical education in Africa.”

Ferrara

Ferrara, the college’s associate dean for research, professor of exercise science and founder of UGA’s athletic training education program, will present at a symposium titled, Sport-Related Concussion Management: From the Field to the Laboratory, with Larry Leverenz from Purdue University and Jake Resch from the University of Texas at Arlington, a 2010 UGA doctoral graduate.

Ferrara will present on the current trends in concussion assessment and dual tasking. Dual tasking requires an individual to perform a combination of mental and physical tasks concurrently to replicate sport activity.  UGA researchers Phil Tomporowski and Ferrara have developed and tested dual-task methodology to assess executive function of the brain. The dual task testing can be used to determine the severity of a concussion and assist clinicians in making return to play decisions.

ICSEMIS 2012 is sponsored by the International Olympic Committee, International Paralympic Committee, International Federation of Sports Medicine and International Council of Sports Science and Physical Education. The first ICSEMIS was held in Guangzhou, China in 2008 just before the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games will take place on July 27.

For more information on the conference, visit:
www.icsemis2012.com/

Despite their possible positive effects, programs are being reduced or eliminated in many schools, McCullick said. A lack of mandates, or statues written too broadly to enforce with fidelity, lessen the likelihood that schools will adhere to the guidelines.

Children need quality physical education to combat obesity and lead healthy lives. Georgia elementary schools make the grade when it comes to providing that education, but middle and high schools in the state don’t even come close, according to a University of Georgia study.

A study by UGA kinesiology professor Bryan McCullick examined the mandates for school-based physical education in all 50 United States. The results found only six states mandate the appropriate guidelines—150 minutes each week—for elementary school physical education. For older students, two states mandate the appropriate amount of physical education instruction for middle school, and none require adequate physical education at the high school level, a weekly 225 minutes for both. The National Association of Sport and Physical Education set guidelines for the amount of school-based physical education instructional time.

The results of his research were published in the June issue of the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education.

“Findings indicated that statutes were written in a manner that did not explicitly mandate school-based physical education but rather recommended or suggested it,” said McCullick, who teaches in the UGA College of Education.

Public health reforms targeted at school-based physical education are seen as a major part of the answer to the childhood obesity epidemic. This is defined by the one out of every three children who are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors, scientists, health associations and government agencies argue that a key to combating obesity is to increase the amount of quality physical education instruction given in schools.

The study examined the role of federal courts in interpreting ambiguous physical education statutes. The results revealed that courts generally don’t interfere with state legislative decisions concerning curriculum.

“This lack of a judicial safety net strengthens the need for clear legislative guidance if the statutes are to be interpreted in a way that will consistently adhere to the guidelines,” McCullick and his colleagues wrote in the report.

Despite their possible positive effects, programs are being reduced or eliminated in many schools, McCullick said. A lack of mandates, or statues written too broadly to enforce with fidelity, lessen the likelihood that schools will adhere to the guidelines.

In the typical American high school system, a “course” is taken at least 50 minutes every weekday, which makes a typical high school school-based physical education class time 250 minutes per week. If a state required four credits of SBPE, this meant that it exceeded the guideline of 225 minutes of instructional time per week. However, no states met those criteria.

“Given the absence of a national school-based physical education law, it is imperative to investigate whether states have directives ensuring it and that those directives mandate the appropriate amount of instructional time,” McCullick said.

New Jersey, for example, required 3.75 credits of physical education for graduation, approximately 187.5 minutes per week. Of all states, New Jersey has the strongest requirement, but it was still 37.5 minutes below the guideline.

At the elementary level, Iowa’s statute mandated that physical education be taught but did not specify how often and included the wording “…pupils in kindergarten through grade five shall engage in physical activity for a minimum of 30 minutes each school day.”

McCullick argues that since physical activity can take many forms and does not require a specialist, Iowa school officials would adhere to the statute if they allowed students to have 30 minutes of recess each day.

“Recess does not guarantee 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity,” he said. “Unfortunately, many legislators and school officials think the opposite.”

Wisconsin’s statue for elementary school students mandates physical education “…at least three times per week minimum…” But, without mandating a period of time, school officials would comply with the statute if their district offered physical education three times a week for 10 minutes per class.

“The first step to ensuring children have a healthy level of school-based physical education is to ensure that states have mandates regarding quality physical education with clear requirements,” McCullick said. “Then, we need to implement a surveillance system to ensure schools adhere to the mandate. Until those are in place we can’t fairly determine the benefits of school-based PE.”

The study was co-authored by Thomas Baker, assistant professor of kinesiology, Phillip Tomporowski, kinesiology professor, and Tiffany Isaac a third-year UGA doctoral student in the department of kinesiology.

Schmidt

Most individuals trying to lose weight will increase physical activity as part of their strategy. For many, however, adding structured exercise does not result in weight loss. Compensatory increases in eating and decreases in non-exercise physical activity appear to be significant factors limiting the effectiveness of exercise interventions.

University of Georgia College of Education researcher Michael Schmidt is now leading a study to determine whether a number of psychological and eating behavior traits predict these compensatory behavior changes – information that could be used to help tailor and target weight management exercise interventions.

The multidisciplinary study, funded by a $408,375 federal grant over two years from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, is led by Schmidt, an assistant professor and graduate coordinator of the exercise science program in the COE’s department of kinesiology. Co-investigators include James MacKillop, an associate professor in Franklin College of Arts & Sciences’ department of psychology; Ellen Evans, an associate professor of exercise science in the COE’s department of kinesiology; and Stephen Rathbun, an associate professor in the College of Public Health’s department of epidemiology and biostatistics.

Evans, MacKillop and Schmidt are participants in the Obesity Initiative at UGA. Launched in January 2012, the project advances research efforts on adult and childhood obesity and its related diseases with the aim to improve the health of Georgia’s citizens and decrease the cost of health care in the state.

While 150-250 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise is recommended for preventing weight gain and promoting modest weight loss, substantial inter-individual variability has been observed in the effectiveness of structured exercise to achieve expected levels of weight loss due to compensatory responses.

The multidisciplinary study, funded by a $408,375 federal grant over two years from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

For each individual, the type and magnitude of these compensatory responses will predict the effectiveness of exercise to prevent weight gain or promote weight loss and, ultimately, cardiovascular health. Recent research has focused on the timing and magnitude of these compensatory changes in different population subgroups and across different intensities and durations of exercise. However, few studies have sought to identify the characteristics and traits that predict individual differences in the magnitude and direction of these compensatory behaviors.

The UGA study aims to: 1) identify psychological predictors of compensatory changes in diet and non-exercise physical activity in response to initiating a structured exercise program; 2) assess the relative importance of diet and activity changes in the total compensatory response; and 3) evaluate the influence of baseline body composition on compensatory changes in energy intake and expenditure.

To meet these aims, a uniformity trial comprised of a series of four identical 8-week moderate-intensity walking interventions will be conducted in a community-based sample of 120 sedentary, premenopausal women. Psychological characteristics and traits known to be related to other health behaviors (e.g. smoking, substance abuse) will be assessed at baseline and compensatory changes in energy intake and energy expenditure will be measured over the course of the intervention.

Multiple regression modeling will then be used to identify the psychological and physiological factors that explain substantial individual differences in compensatory behaviors among these women.

“The knowledge generated from this study will position the team to design a larger weight management intervention trial to explore the efficacy of a tailored approach that recognizes and attempts to manage identified psychological characteristics and traits among individuals differing in weight status,” said Schmidt.

UGA education researchers hope to find additional teachers in Dalton City, Dougherty, Forsyth, Habersham, Lee, Mitchell and Worth County school districts to participate in the $2.9 million study of the instructional conversation teaching method.

Researchers from the University of Georgia College of Education are seeking third- and fifth-grade classroom teachers from several counties across Georgia to participate in the second and third cohorts of their Instructional Conversation teaching strategy study.

“About two years ago, we received a four-year, $2.9 million grant from the federal government to investigate the effectiveness of a teaching method called Instructional Conversation (IC) for improving the academic achievement of English language learners (ELLs) in upper elementary grades,” said Karen Samuelsen, an assistant professor of educational psychology and co-investigator of the project.

“Numerous small-scale studies have shown IC to be an effective strategy for this population, however none of the studies met the evidence standards the government needs to make new policies or recommendations. Our study is meant to fill that gap and definitively say that IC works for ELLs,” said Samuelsen. “We are also examining its effectiveness for students who speak English as their first language and expect to see the same result.”

Samuelsen

Teachers from participating schools must commit to the project for two years. They will be randomly assigned to either the treatment or control group. Teachers in the treatment group will receive training in the IC model during the summer, and instructional support from an experienced teacher/partner from their own district for a full year after that to help master the teaching strategy. The study pays for the time and effort of participating teachers and teacher coaches, as well as the professional development.

About 55 teachers in Gainesville City, Clarke, Colquitt, Hall, Jackson and Newton county school districts are participating in the first cohort. About 35 more teachers from Gwinnett and DeKalb county school districts are currently signed up for the second cohort that will eventually include up to 90 teachers. UGA researchers hope to find those additional teachers in Dalton City, Dougherty, Forsyth, Habersham, Lee, Mitchell and Worth County school districts.

The idea behind “Instructional Conversation” is to spark an educational dialogue between students and teachers in a small group setting. In doing so, connections to students’ lives can be made, higher-order thinking emphasized and lessons differentiated. “We need to get students talking in the classroom using academic language and having conversations like adults, where they question each other and ask why,” said Samuelsen.

She said that English-language learners often have a strong grasp of “conversational language,” but that way of communicating does not translate well to the material covered on the state tests. “Sometimes educators mistakenly believe that ELLs will be fine in the classroom because they are skilled conversationally,” Samuelsen said. “What they need is practice with this academic language—first hearing it, then saying it, and finally, owning it.”

For more information, contact the grant coordinator, Marcy Nejat (MNejat@uga.edu).

The study's results show that when individuals with medical conditions adopt and maintain a program of regular exercise, they report feeling happier and less depressed.

Suffering from a chronic illness can drain a person’s quality of life, but add in depression, and the results are debilitating. A new study from University of Georgia researchers shows that exercise training can reduce depression symptoms in patients with a chronic illness.

In a study published in a recent edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed the results of 90 randomized controlled trials involving more than 10,500 sedentary patients with a chronic illness. The study did not focus on patients diagnosed with depression.

“The symptoms of depression that often accompany a chronic illness can lead to a reduced quality of life among patients through restrictions in social and recreational activities, lower adherence to doctors’ recommended lifestyle changes that reduce future health risks, and increased disability and health care costs,” said Matthew Herring, who led the study during his dissertation research as a doctoral student in the UGA College of Education’s department of kinesiology. “Also, because some evidence has questioned how effective antidepressant medications are among patients with a chronic illness, there has continued to be interest in alternative therapies including exercise.”

Herring is now a research associate in the department of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The team also included Patrick O’Connor and Rodney Dishman, co-directors of the UGA exercise psychology laboratory, and Timothy Puetz, who earned his doctorate at UGA.

The patients typically participated in strength or aerobic exercise training for 17 weeks, with three sessions per week, 42 minutes per session. The reduction in symptoms was significantly larger in patients who performed moderate to vigorous physical activity as recommended.

The study builds on the researchers’ findings published in Archives of Internal Medicine in February 2010 that regular exercise reduces patient anxiety by 20 percent.

“Our findings are important because millions of Americans suffer from a chronic medical condition, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, obesity, pain and fatigue that can present a barrier to being physically active,” said O’Connor. “Our results show that when individuals with medical conditions such as these adopt and maintain a program of regular exercise, they report feeling happier and less depressed. The results provide health care professionals with additional evidence for recommending physical activity to their patients.”

Among the nine types of patients studied, those with lung and cardiorespiratory disease as well as obesity showed the largest magnitude of improvement in depression symptoms after exercise training.

This finding is particularly timely due to the recent launch of UGA’s Obesity Initiative, which addresses adult and childhood obesity and its related diseases. Advances in research and efforts in outreach aim to improve the health of Georgia’s citizens and decrease the cost of health care in the state.

“The results also dispel the skeptical view that people feel better when they exercise only because they expect to,” said Dishman. “The studies we reviewed were planned to study chronic diseases, not mental health. Patients wouldn’t have been expecting a drop in depression. Also, the reduction in depression depended in part on a favorable change in the primary outcome of the study, such as physical functioning or weight loss. So, lower depression was an unexpected, added value of exercise. Our work during the last 15 years using animal models of depression confirms that exercise alters brain biology in ways that can explain these anti-depressant effects of exercise.”

The findings warrant further study, particularly on patients with a chronic illness who have been diagnosed with depression.

For a PDF of the study, see http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/172/2/101.

For more on the Department of Kinesiology, see www.coe.uga.edu/kinesiology.

For more on the Obesity Initiative at UGA, see obesity.uga.edu.