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!

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