Category: Research
I recently had the opportunity to teach a brain fitness class for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on the Coral Gables campus of the University of Miami. As part of the class, we focused a great deal on memory since that is one of the things people were most interested in.
I had anticipated strong interest in the class, but not as much as we actually had. I had thought perhaps 15-20 people would come to the class the first day, but 60 persons came the first day. As part of their participation, I asked students to complete several questionnaires about how they felt about their memory abilities as well as administered a short memory test. We did the same measures at the end of the class.
A striking finding in previous research is that memory self-efficacy is strongly related to actually memory abilities. This term refers to the extent to which you believe you have control over how your memory works and can cope with challenges. Sure enough, in our Osher class, we found that students’ memory self-efficacy was related to how well they performed on a memory class. That leaves two possibilities: people who have good memories have high levels of memory self-efficacy, or that people with high levels of self-efficacy have good memories.
Which is it? Other studies have shown that people with higher levels of self-efficacy respond better to memory training. I think the chances are that the answer to the question is one or the other, but both. Having memory problems may make you feel less well able to control your memory, but feeling as though you understand and control your memory may make you better able to cope with challenges to your memory.
How can you improve your memory self-efficacy? The short answer is to learn more about how your memory works and develop realistic expectations for yourself about how your memory should work. I like a book called The Memory Workbook by DJ Mason, ML Kohn, and KA Clark (New Harbinger, 2001). The participants in our memory class really liked it, and it includes a number of exercises that you can work through on your own.
A recent article in the journal Neuron provides some insight into what goes on in our brains when we encounter new things. The study it reports looked at what goes on in the brain when we encounter new things. It’s true, for example, that when given a choice, people often choose something new over something they already know about. This kind of behavior seems to be mediated by neural pathways in the frontal lobes and in a deeper part of the brain called the ventral striatum. The study showed that when people made choices based on their preference for novelty, the ventral striatum showed greater activity.
What does this have to do with brain fitness? I’m interested in the study for a couple of reasons:
- First, novelty-seeking or ‘exploratory behavior’ decreases as we get older. This might even be the basis for the old saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” We know it isn’t that you can’t teach older people new things, but it may be true that older people aren’t as interested in new things.
- Second, the brain chemical dopamine is important in this neural circuit, and we know that the circuits in the brain using this chemical are less active in older people.
- Third, much of the research on improving mental abilities in older people has focused on learning new things as a key characteristic of the kind of activities that improve cognitive abilities.
- Putting these all together, it may be that choosing new things may stimulate dopaminergic activity in the ventral striatum. It is speculation, but maybe choosing novelty improves the activity of this area and the other areas linked to it. Choosing novelty may improve brain fitness.
The bottom line: This study helps us understand what goes on in the brain when we make choices based on how new something is. Its findings suggest a possible way that newness or novelty can improve brain fitness.
Reference: Wittmann BC, Daw ND, Seymour B, Dolan RJ. Striatal activity underlies novelty-based choice in humans. Neuron, 58, 967-983 (June 26th, 2008).
“Life goes by pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
One ability that is usually measured in studies of cognitive aging is “psychomotor speed.” It’s often considered as a separate ability and has been shown to decline with increasing age. What is it, and why is it important?
Psychomotor speed means being able to coordinate thinking fast with doing something fast. Driving a car is an obvious example. You have to move your eyes and your head to know what’s going on around you. You have to think about what your car is doing, and what other drivers, pedestrians, and animals are going to do. And you have to respond to what you see by doing something such as pressing the brake or accelerator pedals, turning the steering wheel, or using the turn signal. The “psycho” in psychomotor refers to the thinking part of this skill, while the “motor” part refers to doing something with your muscles, like hitting the break when you see a ball bouncing into the street. When you’re younger, you’re generally able to do this sort of thing much more quickly than you can as you get older. Some studies show that psychomotor speed starts declining in someone’s 20s, and continues to decline with age.
Like Ferris Bueller says, “life goes by pretty fast.” A lot of things go by pretty fast, and declines in psychomotor speed affect more than just driving ability. Another example that isn’t quite as obvious is your ability to understand conversations. You may not think about it this way, but understanding what people are saying requires that you take in all sorts of sounds, sort out what’s meaningful from what’s noise, and then figure out what a speaker is saying based on this complex of sound and meaning. And you have to do all of this pretty quickly, before the next volley of sound comes at you. Some people believe that this is one of the issues that causes older people to say they have trouble understanding conversation. It’s not just having problems in hearing (that can often be helped with a hearing aid) but also with speed of processing or psychomotor speed.
Since psychomotor speed is something that can be improved with training, it may be possible for older people to improve it in ways that might help in everyday life. Both auditory (hearing) and visual speed training are included in many computer brain training programs.
A lot of advertising today touts computer software for brain fitness or brain training activities. Some of the software is (relatively) inexpensive, and some costs a fair amount (for example, about $400 for one program). Several websites offer memberships that give you access to stimulating games and other training activities.
How do you decide what software you should use?
First, I think it’s important to remember that nothing has been shown to stop cognitive aging or to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Brain fitness, a brain gym, or any other cognitive fitness program may help you maintain your current level of function and may improve some specific skills, such as memory and thinking speed. These are important benefits and make brain fitness programs worth considering.
As for the software, as with many things, it depends. Some software programs have been subjected to more rigorous testing than have others. On the other hand, most brain fitness software programs have similar content. They often include activities that try to help you improve your working memory, your ability to think and react quickly, and your capacity to do several things at once. Some software programs have very original ways to improving your ability to do things. Posit Science’s new offering, Cortext, now includes a software program that helps you improve your visual attention to the world around. This program was developed by Dr. Karlene Ball at the University of Alabama, and has been shown to improve older driver’s skills. It’s called the Useful Field of View, or UFOV.
Some activities built in computer brain training software and often used in brain gyms are pretty much the same whether you’re using an inexpensive handheld trainer. Others, like the UFOV, are only available in a specific package. So whether one program or another is best for you may depend on what kind of memory or other cognitive problems you are having trouble with, and what you want to improve.
A recent article in the International Herald Tribune describes some of the available software programs, and some creative ways that some older adults are figuring out how to maintain their function. The author of the article quotes Dr. Gene Cohen, Director of the Center on Aging at George Washington University, who says that what’s essential is some activity to “challenge your brain.” (Click here to see the article.)
One man, for example, reads books upside down to improve his cognitive flexibility. Another man takes opportunities to memorize numbers he sees around him. The author quotes one of the persons in this article as saying “Smart people find new ways to exercise their brains that don’t involve buying software or taking expensive workshops.”
I would say there are three important issues in deciding whether you use brain fitness software or go to a brain gym.
- The first is whether you want an evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses to help you guide your work in the brain gym. A comprehensive assessment also will give you a baseline to help determine whether any of your abilities change over time.
- The second issue is whether you want to benefit from a specific training activity that is only available in a specific software package. Some people think doing the brain puzzles of Sudoku (a game that asks to do mental arithmetic across several parts of a puzzle) is helpful. You can do that in books you can buy at the grocery store, or you can do it in an inexpensive handheld gaming device such as the Nintendo DS. On the other hand, if you want to work on certain visual or auditory skills, some of the software programs may be a better bet.
- The third issue is whether you want the help, encouragement, and support you can get from the staff in a brain fitness program. Just as many people do well in working out in a gym they have in their home, others find that actually going to a health club helps them stick with their program. This may be especially true if you have a personal trainer or are in a group.
I spend a lot of time teaching medical students, residents, fellows, and other health care professionals. Since I think it’s critical that we base our clinical practice on the best evidence available, I like to talk about what research evidence shows. This means that at least some of the time I have to explain a little bit about how research studies are done, what kind of evidence they produce, and why some studies are generally considered to give us better or stronger evidence than others.
One of the most important issues that comes up in discussions of research in the media and with patients and clinicians has to do with research design. Not all research is done in the same way, and we can draw certain kinds of conclusions from one research design but not others. We often want to decide whether something either causes disease (for example, smoking) or helps prevent it (for example, does vitamin C prevent colds?). Two basic kinds of research studies deal with these issues in different ways, and give us different kinds of information.
The most common type of study that gives us information about factors associated with disease is the observational study. These studies are very common, and usually involve collecting information from a group people at one point in time, and then collecting the information on other occasions. We might, for example, ask a group of people in the community about their memory, diet, exercise, and use of vitamin supplements. Later, we would ask them the same questions again. Perhaps some of the people would say that their memory had gotten worse. We could then find out if their diet, exercise, or use of vitamins was different from the people who said their memory was OK.
The good thing about this kind of study is it’s easy to do and therefore less expensive than many other kinds of research. The weakness is we can’t control all the things that might affect the study’s outcome.
Suppose we found that people who took vitamins were less likely to say their memory got worse. Would that mean that taking vitamin C is good for your memory? No. Although this kind of study is often interpreted this way, it’s not true. We don’t know whether something else is going on that is related to taking vitamin C but also affects memory.
A good example are the results of observational studies that ask people about taking drugs called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). These are medications like ibuprofen; there are many brand names. Studies have shown that people who took NSAIDS for arthritis are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. So far, so good. But when controlled clinical trials of NSAIDS in people with memory problems were done, they didn’t show any benefit.
Observational studies are really useful for helping us understand what may cause a disease, but they usually aren’t very good at nailing down exactly how to treat one.
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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.
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. (more…)
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.