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Cognitive Lifestyle and Neuroprotection

October 16, 2012 Brain Fitness, Cardiovascular Disease, Cognitive abilities No Comments
man thinking

A study from earlier this year sheds light on how being mentally active may confer protection for cognitive decline. Michael Valenzuela is a researcher whose work focuses on understanding the links between mental activity over someone’s entire life and their later function. In previous studies, he and his colleagues have shown that a summary measure of cognitive activity over a person’s entire life (including such things as travel, learning a foreign language, and even playing board games) may be related to lower risk for developing dementia. In this paper, Valenzuela and his colleagues look at how what he terms the “active cognitive lifestyle” affects brain function. The study shows that the cognitive lifestyle was associated with lower risk for cerebrovascular disease in men. It was also linked to change in the frontal lobes in both men and women that suggested the development of ways of compensating for age-related changes.

Reference:

Valenzuela, MJ et al. (2012) Multiple biological pathways link cognitive lifestyle to protection from dementia. Biological Psychiatry, 71, 783-791. Link to abstract is here; access to full text requires subscription.

Exercise, Mitochondrial DNA, and Brain Fitness

March 11, 2011 Brain Fitness, Cardiovascular Disease, cognition, exercise, Fitness No Comments
Mouse on white background

One very influential theory of why our physical and mental functions decline with age holds that changes in our DNA accumulate over time so that out cells don’t work any more. Perhaps the most important part of our DNA exists in every cell in a special part called the mitochondia. Mitochondria are especially important because they are the part of the cell that helps it generate energy. DNA contains the programs that generate energy, but over time errors accumulate in the programs until eventually they don’t work very well any more. Errors in the programs that run our cells happen all the time — but when we’re younger the cells can fix themselves. As we get older, the cells don’t fix themselves as well. The result: our bodies don’t work as well as they used to. Over time, things start breaking and can’t be fixed. Eventually . . .

A recent study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science reports on a way to reduce the errors, at least in mice who are prone to an increased number of DNA errors. These mice have an increased number of errors in their DNA, and even early in life start to show signs of aging that are eerily similar to those seen in humans: hair loss, graying, low of body weight, and problems in mobility. Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, compared mice with the increased number of errors to regular mice, and looked at what happened if some of the error-prone mice spent time exercising.

The group of the mice who had DNA errors exercised for 45 minutes on three days a week for 5 months. The researchers then compared the three groups: (1) DNA error-prone who didn’t exercise, (2) DNA error-prone who exercised, and (3) regualr mice who had normal DNA. Result: The error-prone mice who exercised looked the same as the regular mice. They weren’t just stronger, or in better shape, or able to run longer. They “lacked visible features of the accelerated aging phenotype (alopecia and graying hair) and were visually indistinguishable from age-matched … littermates” (page 4135).

Does this mean that if you start exercising regularly you can reverse aging? Probably not. But good research continues to accumulate that shows that exercise can improve cognition and keep the effects of aging to a minimum.

You can find an abstract for the article here. To read the full article, you will need a subscription to the journal.

Brain Fitness

Depression and Risk for Dementia

Hispanic Woman

An article authored by a group at the University of Pittsburgh today published an article in the British Journal of Psychiatry confirming and extending our 2006 paper in the Archives of General Psychiatry showing that depression is related to an increased risk of developing dementia later in life. Our previous paper showed that having …

Strength Training and the Brain

Gray haired woman lifting weight

Lots of evidence points to the usefulness of aerobic exercise for maintaining and improving mental functioning (see a previous blog post here and an extensive review article here). It is not as clear, though, whether strength training has an effect. An article in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that even a …

Concentration

Old book pen magnifier

Maria Konnikova posts an interesting article in this past Sunday’s New York Times on the effects of undivided attention and mindfulness. In her post, she links concentration to Sherlock Holmes (perhaps because that’s a link to her forthcoming book), but she provides a nice if brief review of some of …

Cognitive Lifestyle and Neuroprotection

man thinking

A study from earlier this year sheds light on how being mentally active may confer protection for cognitive decline. Michael Valenzuela is a researcher whose work focuses on understanding the links between mental activity over someone’s entire life and their later function. In previous studies, he and his colleagues have …

Physical Activity and How Long You Live

Man riding a bicycle in a race

Lots of research has shown that, at least over short periods of time, people who are physically active are more alert, remember things better, and are in better health. But does that mean that they live longer?  A recent review article looked at this question. The authors found 13 papers …

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