Sharp Brains: Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

Neuroplasticity, Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

Book
Market Report
Summit
Council

Dec 26, 2007

Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs

By:

I hope you are hav­ing happy hol­i­days, and are get­ting ready for New Year cel­e­bra­tions. Best wishes to you and your loved ones.

Via Med­Jour­nal­Watch we just found this inter­est­ing paper,

Asso­ci­a­tions of job demands and intel­li­gence with cog­ni­tive per­for­mance among men in late life. Guy G. Pot­ter PhD*, Michael J. Helms BS, and Brenda L. Plass­man PhD Neu­rol­ogy 2007.

- CONCLUSIONS: “Intel­lec­tu­ally demand­ing work was asso­ci­ated with greater ben­e­fit to cog­ni­tive per­for­mance in later life inde­pen­dent of related fac­tors like edu­ca­tion and intel­li­gence. The fact that indi­vid­u­als with lower intel­lec­tual apti­tude demon­strated a stronger pos­i­tive asso­ci­a­tion between work and higher cog­ni­tive per­for­mance dur­ing retire­ment sug­gests that behav­ior may enhance intel­lec­tual reserve, per­haps even years after peak intel­lec­tual activity.”

This is con­sis­tent with the Cog­ni­tive Reserve the­ory we dis­cussed in the inter­view with neu­ro­sci­en­tist Yaakov Stern:

- AF (Alvaro Fer­nan­dez): OK, so our goal is to build that Reserve of neu­rons, synapses, and skills. How can we do that? What defines “men­tally stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties” or good “brain exercise”?

- YS (Yaakov Stern): In sum­mary, we could say that “stim­u­la­tion” con­sists of engag­ing in activ­i­ties. In our research almost all activ­i­ties are seen to con­tribute to reserve. Some have chal­leng­ing lev­els of cog­ni­tive com­plex­ity, and some have inter­per­sonal or phys­i­cal demands. In ani­mal stud­ies, expo­sure to an enriched envi­ron­ment or increased phys­i­cal activ­ity result in increased neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (the cre­ation of new neu­rons). You can get that stim­u­la­tion through edu­ca­tion and/ or your occu­pa­tion. There is clear research show­ing how those two ele­ments reduce the risk. Now, what is very excit­ing is that, no mat­ter one’s age, edu­ca­tion and occu­pa­tion, our level of par­tic­i­pa­tion in leisure activ­i­ties has a sig­nif­i­cant and cumu­la­tive effect. A key mes­sage here is that dif­fer­ent activ­i­ties have inde­pen­dent, syn­er­gis­tic, con­tri­bu­tions, which means the more things you do and the ear­lier you start, the bet­ter. But you are never stuck: bet­ter late than never.

- Read more on the Cog­ni­tive Reserve

In short, men­tally and socially stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties, through our edu­ca­tion, occu­pa­tion AND leisure activ­i­ties, con­tribute to build­ing a Cog­ni­tive Reserve in our brains that may help delay mem­ory prob­lems, Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment, and Alzheimer’s related symp­toms, and help main­tain cog­ni­tive per­for­mance over­all as we age.

If you are think­ing about New Year Res­o­lu­tions, this is one more area to con­sider. Happy 2008!

Be Socia­ble, Share!
Print This Article Print This Article Email This Post Email This Post

Categories: Cognitive Neuroscience, Education & Lifelong Learning, Health & Wellness, Professional Development

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

8 Responses

  1. elona says:
    December 26, 2007 at 5:02

    Thank you for the opti­mistic outlook.

  2. Alvaro says:
    December 27, 2007 at 8:44

    Hello Elona, well, more than opti­mistic I’d say I am real­is­tic: we can not change our own genes, but there is much we can do about our lifestyle!

    Happy New Year

  3. School Psych says:
    December 29, 2007 at 2:26

    Great blog. Per­son­ally, I agree whole­heart­edly with this the­ory. Lifestyles and inten­sity of cog­ni­tive rigor do have a rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ship. A bit of a cliche, maybe, yet I believe the human brain rises to the chal­lenges we offer it…

  4. Alvaro says:
    December 29, 2007 at 6:01

    Thanks for stop­ping by. And yes, up to a very large extent, “the human brain rises to the chal­lenges we offer it”.

  5. » Brain Training Magazine: December Edition   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    December 30, 2007 at 4:23

    […] Cog­ni­tive Reserve and Intel­lec­tu­ally Demand­ing Jobs: a recent study shows how “Intel­lec­tu­ally demand­ing work was asso­ci­ated with greater ben­e­fit to cog­ni­tive per­for­mance in later life inde­pen­dent of related fac­tors like edu­ca­tion and intelligence.” […]

  6. Dave’s Whiteboard » Blog Archive » Yogi Berra on learning says:
    March 19, 2008 at 12:53

    […] I found another post at SharpBrains:  Cog­ni­tive Reserve and Intel­lec­tu­ally Demand­ing Jobs. Intel­lec­tu­ally demand­ing work was asso­ci­ated with greater ben­e­fit to cog­ni­tive per­for­mance in later life inde­pen­dent of related fac­tors like edu­ca­tion and intel­li­gence. The fact that indi­vid­u­als with lower intel­lec­tual apti­tude demon­strated a stronger pos­i­tive asso­ci­a­tion between work and higher cog­ni­tive per­for­mance dur­ing retire­ment sug­gests that behav­ior may enhance intel­lec­tual reserve, per­haps even years after peak intel­lec­tual activity. […]

  7. Blaise says:
    January 6, 2009 at 5:39

    What do you mean by intel­lec­tu­ally demand­ing jobs. Can you give some spe­cific exam­ples and counter examples?

  8. Alvaro Fernandez says:
    January 7, 2009 at 1:06

    Men­tally stim­u­lat­ing: any job that involves fre­quent nov­elty, com­plex orga­ni­za­tion, decision-making, multi-tasking, plan­ning… you can think of careers like law, med­i­cine and jour­nal­ism. Accord­ing to our co-founder and neu­ro­sci­en­tist Elkhonon Gold­berg, launch­ing Sharp­Brains does qual­ity as “very stim­u­lat­ing” for those involved.

    Not men­tally stim­u­lat­ing: any­thing that over­time becomes repet­i­tive, monot­o­nous, and requires lit­tle atten­tion and decision-making to per­form. In order not to offend any­one (and to ben­e­fit your brain), I leave it to you to think of examples.

    Please also note a nuance that this kind of research can not get into: one fac­tor is the job/ career itself, another one (more dif­fi­cult to mea­sure in large stud­ies) is how one indi­vid­ual chooses to approach his or her job/ career.

Welcome to SharpBrains!

As seen in The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, CNN and more, Sharp­Brains is an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research and pub­lish­ing firm track­ing brain fit­ness and applied neu­ro­plas­tic­ity research and mar­ket­place. AARP recently named The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness a Best Book on the subject.

UPCOMING ONLINE COURSE: How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach in 2012 (March 2012).

NEWS: How to Sub­mit a Guest Post to SharpBrains.com.

Sponsored Ad

Top 30 Articles

  1. Top 50 Brain Teasers, by Sharp­Brains Team
  2. The Ten Habits of Highly Effec­tive Brains, by Alvaro Fernandez
  3. Why do You Turn Down the Radio When You’re Lost?, by Car­o­line Latham
  4. Brain Plas­tic­ity: How learn­ing changes your brain, by Pas­cale Michelon
  5. Top 10 Brain Fit­ness Future Trends, by Alvaro Fernandez
  6. 7 FAQs on Men­tal Exer­cise, by Alvaro Fernandez
  7. It is Not Only Cars That Deserve Good Main­te­nance: Brain Care 101, by Alvaro Fernandez
  8. Eval­u­a­tion Check­list for Brain Fit­ness prod­ucts and games, by Alvaro Fernandez
  9. MIT Event on Brain Games: Con­text, Trends, Ques­tions, by Alvaro Fernandez
  10. Stress Man­age­ment Work­shop for Inter­na­tional Women’s Day, by Alvaro Fernandez
  11. Mind­ful­ness and Med­i­ta­tion in Schools for Stress Man­age­ment, by Jill Sutie
  12. Stress and Neural Wreck­age: Part of the Brain Plas­tic­ity Puz­zle, by Gre­gory Kellet
  13. How can I improve my short term mem­ory?, by Car­o­line Latham
  14. Cog­ni­tive and Emo­tional Devel­op­ment Through Play, by David Elkind
  15. Judith Beck: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son, by Alvaro Fernandez
  16. Easy Steps to Improve Brain Health, by Car­o­line Latham
  17. Info­graphic: State of the Mar­ket 2009, by Paul Van Slembrouck
  18. Improve Mem­ory with Sleep, Prac­tice, and Test­ing, by Bill Klemm
  19. 10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn, by Lau­rie Bartels
  20. Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and Brain Fit­ness, by Alvaro Fernandez
  21. Max­i­mize the Cog­ni­tive Value of Your Men­tal Work­out, by Schlomo Breznitz
  22. Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram and Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity @ PBS, by Alvaro Fernandez
  23. Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion for Adults & Teens with ADHD, by David Rabiner
  24. Can Intel­li­gence Be Trained? Mar­tin Buschkuehl shows how, by Alvaro Fernandez
  25. How Strong is the Research Sup­port for Neu­ro­feed­back in Atten­tion Deficits?, by David Rabiner
  26. Exer­cis­ing the body is exer­cis­ing the mind, by Adrian Preda
  27. Brain Evo­lu­tion and Why it is Mean­ing­ful Today to Improve Our Brain Health, by Larry McCleary
  28. Phys­i­cal Exer­cise and Brain Health, by Pas­cale Michelon
  29. Posit Sci­ence, Nin­tendo Brain Age, and Brain Train­ing Top­ics, by Alvaro Fernandez
  30. Sleep, Tetris, Mem­ory and the Brain, by Shan­non Moffet

Sponsored Ads

Enter Your Email and Sub­scribe to our free Monthly eNewslet­ter:
Join more than 40,000 Sub­scribers and stay informed and engaged.

Sponsored Ad

Engage and Discuss via

twitter_logo_header

Monthly Blog Archives