Physical exercise
Physical exercise has well established beneficial effects on learning and memory (see Neurobiological effects of physical exercise). "BDNF" is a particularly important regulator of learning and memory. As reviewed by Fernandes et al., in rats, exercise enhances the hippocampus expression of the gene "Bdnf", which has an essential role in memory formation. Enhanced expression of "Bdnf" occurs through demethylation of its CpG island promoter at exon IV and demethylation depends on base excision repair (see figure).