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I’ve seen a lively discussion in some groups about the best ways to do brain training. The discussion revolves around not only what to do but also how long and how often someone should do the training.
As with most things about brain training, there isn’t much good research to guide you. As with learning almost anything, though, one reasonable strategy is to train for 20-30 minutes at least once a day. Twice a day is likely to improve the training effect, but it’s not clear by how much. It’s important not to do too much of one activity. Too much learning in one area without allowing yourself a break may result in interference in your learning.
You should also consider other factors in your training. The best software programs, for example, give you a number of choices in activities, and don’t to any one thing for very long. Although the free n-back training software is very good, some people may find it boring after 20 minutes a day over several weeks. You shouldn’t take your level of motivation for granted. It’s what will keep you training after the initial thrill of trying out cognitive training wears off.
A recent study reported in the journal Neurology once again gives us more evidence about how important exercise may be for keeping your brain healthy.
The study looked at how fit two groups were. One group included people without memory problems and had an average age of about 72 years. The second group included people with Mild Cognitive Impairment and early Alzheimer’s disease. Their average age was about 74 years (this difference wasn’t statistically significant). Both groups included about the same number of men and women and were well-educated (many had at least some college-level education).
The researchers looked a measure of how well the lungs can use oxygen that’s referred to as “VO2 max.” It’s an index of how well the heart and the lungs work during exercise.
They looked at the brains of people in each group using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). From this, they could calculate how big several parts of the brain were.
They gave all the participants a battery of neuropsychological measures that assessed their thinking and memory abilities.
The researchers showed that for the people with memory problems (those with mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer’s disease) there was a relationship between fitness and how big the brains of the patients were. People who were more fit had bigger brains. They had more gray matter – that’s the part of the brain that includes nerve cells. (White matter has the fibers that connect the parts of the gray matter.)
For the people who didn’t have memory problems, there wasn’t a relationship between the size of the brain and fitness. But in this group, there was a relation between fitness and how well they did on the neuropsychological tests.
This study shows two things that are important. First, it confirms that people who are more fit do better on test of memory and other thinking skills. Since other studies have shown this, this isn’t new. Second, it shows that the size of the gray matter in the brain in people with early stages of memory loss is related to fitness. This is new, and gives us a clue about why physical fitness might be related to brain fitness.
One warning: like many studies about risk factors and memory loss, this study is only looks at the way two things are related. Researchers call this kind of study correlational, because it looks at the relation between two things using a statistical measure called correlation. It’s important to remember that in this kind of study, we don’t know which way the two things are related.
It may be that better fitness causes people to have more nerve cells. On the other hand, it may be that people with more nerve cells exercise more. So although this study continues to emphasize the importance of fitness, we should interpret it with a little bit of caution.
The study appeared in the journal Neurology, 71, 210-216 (July 15, 2008)
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).
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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.