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Deanna Barch, PhD, Professor of Psychology; Professor of Radiology, chair of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences in Arts & Sciences and the Gregory B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis was the senior author of a study that linked participation in team sports to larger hippocampal volumes in children and less depression in boys ages 9 to 11. The hippocampus is a brain region that plays an important role in memory and how we respond to stress. She said the evidence was particularly strong for children participating in sports that involved structure, such as a school team, a non-school league or regular lessons, as compared to more informal engagement in sports.