Home » Cognitive Training » Recent Articles:

Cognitive Training, Gait Speed, and Brain Fitness

December 12, 2010 Brain Fitness, Cognitive Training, exercise, Fitness 2 Comments
Picture of people running

An article in this weeks’ Journal of Gerontology, provides some interesting information on how cognitive training can actually affect someone’s physical status. The article, titled “Effect of Cognitive Remediation on Gait in Sedentary Seniors,” reports on a small group of elders who completed 8 weeks of computer-based cognitive training. The authors found that the elders who completed cognitive training actually showed an increase in walking speed (even though that wasn’t part of the training).

This is significant for several reasons. First, it suggests that a mental activity can have positive effects on someone’s physical status. Said this way, this isn’t all that surprising — we’ve known for many years that relaxation can help to control blood pressure, and that stress management training can help to reduce the risks of heart attacks. The leap to something as basic as walking speed, however, is new.

Second, the study suggests (at least to me) that the link between mental and physical decline may work both ways. We’ve known for some time that exercise, for example, can have positive effects on cognition. This study suggests that the reverse may be true: that cognition can have a positive effect on physical status.

One more reason for all of us to continue to be both mentally and physically active.

Reference:

Verghese J, et al.(2010). Effect of cognitive remediation on gait in sedentary seniors. Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, 65A, 1338-1343.

Inspiration for Brain Fitness

December 9, 2010 Brain Fitness, Cognitive abilities, Cognitive Training, Working Memory 2 Comments
a light bulb

A recent study from Northwestern University researcher Mark Beeman extends his work on creativity and inspiration. We all know those moments when we’ve been struggling with a problem for a while, and then suddenly we see the answer. An article in the New York Times gives an example: what do “trip,” “house,” and “goal” have in common? Think about if for a moment. It isn’t the kind of problem that you can sit down and work through, like a math question. Even if you start going through possibilities in your mind, you may eventually have a moment when you see the answer (they all can come after “field”).

Beeman shows that people can do this kind of puzzle better when they are in a relaxed frame of mind, such as after seeing a comedy video. Beeman speculates that at such a time, your mind is more able to make the kind of new connections that help to solve this kind of problem.

This has implications for understanding the neurochemistry of puzzle solving. Why do we enjoy puzzles, games, and problems? One possible answer is that working them stimulates the release of the brain chemical dopamine in the parts of your brain that are associated with pleasure (interestingly, drugs of abuse also stimulate the release of dopamine). Working and especially solving puzzles may be inherently rewarding because of dopamine release, explaining why so many of us can spend so much time on them.

Dopamine is key in understanding cognitive abilities such as working memory and psychomotor speed, as it is critically important to both of them. One theory of the cognitive changes that occur with increasing age implicates lower levels of dopamine in the brain, so anything that helps keep that chemical system active is probably important.

Beeman’s work suggests that getting to the solution may also involve other brain systems, or at least a change in the status of brain systems that focus attention. Instead of tightly focused attention on the problem, being able to disconnect from it in a limited way may facilitate the problem’s solution.

The bottom line: Developing the ability to let go and relax when solving a problem may be an important part of getting to the solution. Deadly serious practice of cognitive tasks may promote your brain’s fitness, but getting to the answer of some problem may be facilitated by relaxing.

Brain Fitness

Brain Training Study Off the Ground!

computer with apple for teacher

After overcoming a number of obstacles, our study of the effects of cognitive training on fluid intelligence has finally started. We’re enrolling participants from our local Life Long Learning Program, all of whom are 50 years or older. In the study, we are comparing the effects of working memory training …

Changes in Brain Size with Aging

Picture of chimpanzee

Understanding brain aging has to be research priority. The average age of people in the US is increasing. This means that there are more older people at risk for diseases that occur as people get older, such as Alzheimer’s. In people, the size of the brain decreases as they get …

Exercise, Mitochondrial DNA, and Brain Fitness

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. …

The Default Mode Network and Brain Fitness

Man sleeping on grass

If brain fitness is more than just trying to avoid memory loss as you get older (and I think it is), then understanding how you think is (I think) critical. Sometimes called metacognition, this means not just thinking, but thinking about thinking. Follow that? Metacognition is the idea that we …

Mindfulness Meditation, Brain Fitness, and Gray Matter

Buddhist monk looking out over the forest

Most people know that the brain is smaller with age, at least in part due to loss of brain cells in parts of the brain related to perception, memory, and executive processes. Anything that can slow down or reverse the process should be of interest to all of us, whatever our age. …

RSS Worry and GAD Blog

  • 5 More Steps to Cope with Irritability
    This is a cross posting from my brain fitness blog. As it turns out, worry is probably bad for your brain fitness, so coping with worry not only can improve your mood but may also help improve your thinking and memory. Here the post: Irritability means letting small things that happen to all of us […]
  • Three Ways to Deal with Unconstructive Repetitive Thoughts
    Several researchers have shown that negative mood, anxiety, and distress can be associated with cognitive decline. Wilson and his colleague Patricia Boyle (both at Rush in Chicago) have shown with data from the Religious Orders Study that persons who are chronically distressed have a greater chance of cognitive decline. At the Cognitive Aging Summit (sponsor […]
  • Brain Fitness and The Mind of a Monk
    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, […]