Posts Tagged ‘cognitive aging’
New research published this week gives new clues to the genes related to developing Alzheimer’s disease. Two groups independently reported this week that the gene CLU was related to research participants’ chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease. CLU has the genetic material that allows the body to create a substance called clusterin. Clusterin has multiple functions, but importantly is involved in lipid transport (moving fatty substances in the body) and apoptosis (programmed cell death).
Clusterin is also called apolipoprotein J, and may be involved in removing amyloid plaques from the body. These plaques are key parts of the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. People who have certain forms of the gene are at higher risk for Alzheimer’s. The finding is reported this week in the journal Nature Genetics. Click here for the online report. Another group in France also report on the CLU gene.
The two groups reported on two other genes that may also be involved in Alzheimer’s pathology. Until recently, we have only been fairly sure that the gene for apolipoprotein E was a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. These new studies significantly advance our understanding of the role genes may have in developing Alzheimer’s disease.
An interesting study is reported in the online version of Discover magazine suggesting that mind wandering is an important part of mental functioning. You can find the article here. Researchers asked people to pay attention to a task while their brain activity was recorded in a special scanner called a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI). At intervals they asked the people of they were paying attention to the task. Many people weren’t paying attention and were letting their mind wander. Its’ interesting to know that until they were asked, many of these people didn’t know that their minds were no longer focused on the task.
The researchers went back to the results of the fMRI scans and looked at what the mind wanderers’ brains were doing when they weren’t paying attention. They found that the parts of the brain that were active at those times were related to thinking about yourself and planning for the future. The suggest that the mind has a way of switching back and forth between paying attention in the present and thinking about and planning for the future. So letting your mind wander may have some benefits.
In contrast, an article that appeared earlier this year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology (available here; scroll down to the article titled “Conducting the Train of Thought . . .”) showed that mind wandering was related to poorer working memory functioning. Since working memory function, in general, becomes worse as we get older, this finding presents the possibility that older persons may have the tendency to let their minds wander more than do younger persons.
This would be an explanation for the most common complaint I hear from people about their memory. People tell me “I went in another room to get something and I couldn’t remember what it was.” If your mind wanders in the middle of a task such as finding something, it may give you the impression that your memory isn’t working. It may not be so much your memory itself, but your ability to control whether your mind wanders.
Computer brain training in a brain gym is one way to help improve this ability. Most brain training programs require people to pay attention for extended periods. Both the programs from Posit Science and available on line at Lumosity may train your ability to pay attention. I’m also intrigued by the possibility that coping with stress and improving your mood may help with attention, since both depression and stress have a negative impact on a person’s ability to pay attention. Some types of meditation, too, can help train attention. More studies of all of these interventions are needed to help us figure out whether attention training can help older people improve their everyday memory.
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.
One of the most interesting findings in the field of computer-based cognitive training is based on a study by Susanne Jaeggi and her colleagues that showed that a specific kind of mental exercise can improve fluid reasoning ability. This finding is important and exciting for several reasons. One is the effect of a very small amount of training (as little as 20 minutes a day) on what many people think is a basic mental ability. The other is the idea that any kind of basic ability can be improved.
The computer-based training involves a procedure called n-back training. It’s been used for a long time in neuropsychological or cognitive assessment activities as a way to evaluate working memory. In single n-back, you have to remember, for example, the position of an object that appears intermittently in various positions on a computer screen. If you’re doing the task, you have to press a key on the computer when the object appears in the same place. In single n-back, you would watch to see if the object appears in the same two times in a row. If you are doing 2 n-back, then the object has to appear once in a specific place, then can appear somewhere else on the screen, and then appears again in the first position. The number refers to how many positions back you have to keep track of. It can go up to as many as 6 back.
In dual n-back, you have to do two n-back tasks at the same time. The other one can be auditory, for example. One task asks you to listen to numbers played on the computer’s speakers, with the same basic task. You have to remember whether a number you hear is the same as the one you just heard, or heard before the last one, and so on. It’s easier to understand if you try it out.
You can try it out in several places for free. It can be pretty challenging, but the original study showed that how well a person did the task didn’t matter so much as that the person did the task at the level that worked for them. Doing the task is a great way of training your attention, and another study has shown that this kind of training can make changes in the brain’s chemistry.
You can find try the task out at Soak Your Head (this site requires a browser plug-in called Silverlight, so you may see a message about installing it) and you can download a version for your own computer (free) at Brain Workshop. Another free online version is at The Mindflow.
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.
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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.