[Priem19]

“In our view, the more pronounced effects of dancing on the human brain can be explained by the fact that dancing promotes a large number of processes at the same time: spatial orientation, movement coordination, balance, endurance, interaction and communication.”

That means I'm golden with skateboarding as well; fantastic.

[burntoutfire]

Sound like soccer and other teams sports are also perfect. Sucks that I'm terrible at pretty much all of them...

[sandworm101]

If we are looking at brain effects, the advantages must outweigh the risk of brain injury inherent to the activity. Playing football might help brain plasticity but at considerable risk of brain injuries. Most all the team sports (soccer, lacrosse, hockey etc) have varying degrees of associated brain injury risks, but not dance or other non-competitive sports. At lease when dance (or rock climbing) is competitive the competitors do not share a movement space and so don't knock heads.

[burntoutfire]

There's always volleyball, where competitors don't share the playing space.

[cjbenedikt]

How about gymnastics?

[dbcurtis]

absolutely. Physical therapists often prescribe gymnastics for kids after they “graduate” from more intense PT.