Dr. Matthew B. (Matt) (likely the presenter) - Unknown

And that's a really beautiful network of mitochondria that are able to undergo respiration and do their functions quite robustly.

When mitochondria become really fragmented,

they are dysfunctional.

They can't utilize or even produce energy very well.

And they're on their way to basically dying and causing cells to die.

So there's a very intricate connection between structure of mitochondria and the function of mitochondria.

And that's important because

Vigorous exercise, high intensity exercise has been shown to increase this repair process in mitochondria known as mitophagy.

So when exercise is intense enough,

It increases the nutrient-sensing protein AMP kinase, AMPK.

It activates it.

And this causes the mitochondria to send the signal that they need to repair themselves.

And so mitochondria can be...

sort of dysfunctional, or they can be really dysfunctional.

So mitophagy can clear away an entire dysfunctional mitochondria to be used and recycled, or it can clear away pieces of a dysfunctional mitochondria.

So when you're doing that acute exercise, your mitochondria, if you have a dysfunctional one,

The mitophagy pathway gets activated and the mitochondria fizzes off.

It kind of goes to this mitochondrial fission process.

And that damaged part of the mitochondria then goes and is recycled through the lysosome.

And then what you have is a long-term effect of after doing routine...