Do they not only look dumb, but reduce your IQ to your waist size?

Can sagging pants lead to cognitive decline? 

There are a number of papers being written about gait changes (step length, frequency, speed)  being indicative of cognitive decline (see here and here for 2 of them).

Wearing sagging, baggy pants has many associated issues (see here for our recent post on that). Can the reverse be true? Can creating a smaller step length cause cognitive decline?

Neurologically, we know that the cerebellum is involved with learning. Balance and coordination tasks improve learning. Yes, it is better to have have your kids banging and climbing on the TV, rather than being passive and watching it.  This is probably due to muscle and joint mechanoreceptors being activated, and that information traveling northward in the spinocerebellr tracts which feed to the flocculo nodular lobe and cerebellar hemispheres. Here they interact with converging input from all the other systems (vision, hearing, and probably smell), as well as descending motor information from your motor cortex. They are processed and then redirected to the areas where they came from, as well as to systems which project that information to many places, including, you guessed it, your temporal lobe (memory), parietal lobe (special integration and discrimination) and frontal lobe (personality and motor activity).

So, what happens when you slow or decrease information to the cerebellum? What happens if we don’t use neurons? They degenerate, or are remodeled into something else as the pathways slowly grow over and are replaced by other information your brain sees as more important.

Could decreasing your step length, altering and/or diminishing proprioception affect cerebellar output? Yes. Could this affect your ability to learn and remember? Yes. Could this lead to cognitive decline? Conceivably…

We think you know  where we stand on this. Think before you sag…while you still can

The Gait Guys.  Definitely NOT saggy : )