Cognitive Fitness and Brain Training on the Computer
A lot has been written (and televised) lately about computer software for brain training. It seems to me there a couple of key issues to consider when we talk about brain training and its relation to your brain’s health.
- Neural plasticity: This phrase refers to the ability of the brain to change in response to experience. In the past, many believed that the number of brain cells was fixed early in life and only got smaller as we got older. There was also skepticism about how much the way the nerve cells were wired could change. That has changed. Several studies have shown that the human brain can make new nerve cells (called “neurogenesis”). One study showed that the hippocampus of London taxi drivers changed its size and shape in response to learning about London streets. Another study showed that some parts of the brain may increase in size after learning how to juggle.
- Preventing Alzheimer’s disease: Does computer training prevent Alzheimer’s disease? What we know is that people who engage in mental, physical, and social activity are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. But it’s a chicken and egg questions, since most of the research just shows the relation but not whether one is cause and one is effect. Maybe people who are developing Alzheimer’s are less likely to engage in stimulating activities.
- Improving cognitive function: This is a “no brainer” (sorry for the pun). Few people today believe the adage that “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” People of any age can learn new things, whether it’s a teenager learning how to drive a car or an 80-year-old learning how to use a computer, as Dr. Sara Czaja has shown in studies at the Center on Aging at the University of Miami. The big question isn’t whether we can improve cognitive functioning. We can. The real question is whether computer training will transfer to other real-world situations. So far, there’s very little information about that
So if you’re looking for a cognitive training program, we think the best idea is to have diagnostic testing like we do in the Miami Brain Fitness Program. It can help to pinpoint your areas of strength and weakness, and help you to learn what you should focus on in any kind of cognitive training activity.
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- Meditation as Brain Training
- Brain Fitness and The Mind of a Monk
- Brain Fitness Tip: Training Without a Computer
Mindfulness meditation as practiced over a long period by experts makes clear changes in someone’s brain function. But what about those of us who don’t have a few years to sit in a monastery in the Himalayas? A new study shows that even brief meditation practice can improve attention.
Researchers at Wake Forest University studied whether just four days of training (at just 20 minutes a day) could make a difference in participants’ mood, energy, and cognition. Undergraduate students (average age 22 years) either participated in the meditation sessions or spent a similar amount of time sitting quietly and listening to an audio book.
Participants in the meditation condition showed decreases in anxiety and improvements in several mental processing tasks compared to those in the audio book group. The meditators’ performance on one aspect of a working memory task (how many answers they got correct in a row) suggested that they may have improved their attention.
This is a small and very preliminary study that extends others’ work on meditation and the brain.It shows that even brief meditation practice can make a difference. you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to learn to still your mind and pay better attention. Paying attention may be one of the most important things you can do to improve your brain’s functioning.
Reference:
Zeidan F et al.(in press) Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition, doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.014
I saw an interesting blog post yesterday evening on the site of the Huffington Post about the potential benefits of meditation – or at least about what one woman thinks might be the benefits. Priscilla Warner writes about the contrast between Tibetan monks’ apparent calm, evident even on brain scans, and her own anxiety disorder. Ms. Warner says that she suffers from panic disorder, a severe form of anxiety in which a person can have multiple anxiety attacks every day, even in the middle of the night. Her post is titled “I Want the Brain of a Monk” Although most people don’t suffer from anxiety this severe, many people have symptoms of anxiety. And research has consistently shown that higher levels of anxiety are related to more memory problems.
What’s the relation to brain fitness? In my brain fitness class, I often mention the usefulness of meditation in helping reduce stress and anxiety, both of which have negative effects on memory. You don’t have to go to Tibet to get the benefits of meditation. If you simply take 10 minutes several times a day to break in to the ongoing rush of getting things done, you’ve made a start. Use those 10 minutes to sit quietly, relax your muscles, and breathe deeply.
If you do that every day for two weeks, I think you’ll notice that you feel calmer and better able to focus. And if you’re better able to focus, you will be better able to pay attention and remember things.
Although many people are excited about the potential for using computers to train their brains, we shouldn’t forget that other techniques have been used to the train the brain for many centuries. I’m thinking about the large number of techniques for meditation. While free computer software still requires an investment in a computer, meditation only asks you to sit or lie quietly and focus your mind.
A recently-published study shows parts of the brain in long-term meditators are larger than the same parts of the brain in people who don’t meditate. The article by Eileen Luders and her colleagues appeared in a recent issue of the journal Neuroimage (Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 672-678, April 15, 2009). The study showed that portions of the orbitofrontal cortex and the hippocampus were larger in persons who had been regular meditators for 5 or more years. The study is interesting because the parts of the brain that were larger are often thought to be important in helping people keep themselves emotionally balanced.
A number of strategies are likely to be helpful for meditators. There has been a great deal of interest over the last several years in mindfulness meditation. Researchers have studied how it can be used in reducing anxiety and depression. Mindfulness is based on Buddhist meditation (for a brief article, click here) but you don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice meditation. In fact, one of the most important persons who has promoted mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts. You can see a video presentation by him on YouTube by clicking here.
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