(Also, Can you write a haiku describing anything crossing your mind now? Remember the simple rules: write 3 lines, which don't need to rhyme, containing 5,7, and 5 syllables. You can leave your haiku as a comment below for extra points...)

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Top 10 Brainy Haikus - enjoy!

- Amit:

Love, college, career.
A new world of transitions.
Will I survive? Yes.

- Kathy:

My release technique,
Forgive, forget, love all,
Meditate on that!

- Alan:

Through the microscope,
slice of brain stains pink and blue,
the wonder of thought.

- Justin:

Justin the genieus
Must spell check the word genius
to post this Haiku

- Tim:

writing quick haiku
seems so very difficult
can i pull it off

- Mercury:

Seeking brain fitness.
Am I haiku-focusing,
or just distracted?

- Kalsang:

My fingers tapping,
I chant out five, seven, five.
Is this new music?

- LW:

body aching now,
yoga isn't so easy,
good for you they say?

- Emma:

You think yoga's bad?
Try Aikido my good friend.
Knackers your shoulders.

- CJ:

Rain Stormy Boomer
Sewer Backing To My Door
Is Insurance Paid?

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In case you want to read more, below you have many more haikus contributed during the year:

- Techne, the philosopher, wonders:

Solve the big questions:
How do I know when I know?
Who knows the knower?

- Steve, the environmentalist, requests:

Neuroplastic good.
Plastic, though lasts forever.
Always recycle!

- GTB, the skeptic, says

Haiku's are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

- Millie, spiritual, suggests:

Playing music feeds
my soul while reading music
nurtures my old brain.

- Mark, the optimist, reflects:

I thought I did well
Then I reviewed my answers
I am retard

- jolovli, the boomer, tries again:

improving function
smoked too much weed in college
it's never too late

- Lloyd, the stressed-out, volunteers:

I thought so damn Hard.
My brain built lots of pressure.
I farted out loud.

- Terry says:

New information
Synthesizing my knowledge
A forward movement

- Frank says:

Painfully easy
Significantly harder
Mental stimulus

- Chuck says:

This was fun, and no,
I don't intend to haiku.
Thanks for posting it

- Sarah says:

finding your teasers
added fun to my morning,
helped wake my brain up

- Lorraine says:

teaching math is fun
when you find great resources
sharp brains is the place

- Psalm says

As my mind expands,
it grasps new ideas...oh look
there's something shiny!!

- anon writes

the noon hour portends
a burrito with salsa
brightening my tongue

- Mike says

See I think I see
Here now, not so - really real?
Wounded, mind leaves me

- Lisa

new thoughts activate
frontal lobe work hard, harder
no senility

- Karen

Brain training others
Like watching the Earth open
One thought at a time

- Bruce

My brain stem works hard,
But the tests are much harder,
Need more grey matter

- Alvaro

Can perform better,
Learning, training, and practice
Body, brain and mind

- terri

strokes take speech away
someone should find a quick fix
everyone needs to speak

- qt

Aha, a challenge
for the brain to endeavour
sooner than later

- Stacy

Brain hurts so badly
Working night shift: not so fun
Need to get some sleep

- campercourt

It is morning now
The sun rose very early
Goodmorning to you

- kestrel

first white is purple

or it was red I think

now haiku, what next?

- Stacey

I thought is was fun.
Then it got a lot harder.
Wow i suck at this.

- anon

oh boy I wonder
will my teeny little ears
still hear loud thunder

of course it is true
the aforementioned thunder
came out of the blue

from the blue you say
I think perhaps you are wrong
but it's still okay

- Steve:

Accountant's cull.
Farewell to long-time work-mates.
Too real for haiku!

- Gail:

Old women gather
Seeking change is the power/
Thanks to grandmothers

- Robert:

My brain is just fried.
I used it too much this week.
I need some Spongebob.

- Shelley:

An infinite mind
Expansive, conscious, knowing
Alert and aware

- Jet:

Haiku to you too
Now is forever, now is
Now is now to you

- Jack:

Cool death match: face off
Wernicke's area and
Broca's Region.

Yours, please?

(Remember the simple rules: write 3 lines, which don't need to rhyme, containing 5, 7, and 5  syllables. You can leave your haiku as a comment below for extra points...).

1) Nicks says (Brain Fitness Programs For Seniors Housing, Healthcare and Insurance Providers: Evaluation Checklist)

"This report is interesting and it addresses many very important questions that cognitive neuropsychologists, such as myself have. I feel that many of the products on the market now make claims which are generally unsubstantiated.

I find it concerning that many of these programmes have been marketed to target older adults in particular without making any specific statement on whether the activities are beneficial and have been supported with empirical research.

i have recently conducted a cognitive intervention study which used a large array of outcome measures which focus on a number of different cognitive functions. The measures investigated both objective and subjective behaviours. The results confirmed that attempting cryptic crosswords for one hour per day increased subjective awareness of older adults own memory. However there was no evidence of a tangible increase in episodic, verbal memory with both recall and recognition. There was also no evidence of increases in metacognition. It is important to note that the intervention period was only six weeks. However this demonstrates that there is a need for products to be clear on what functions the activity will promote and whether it is affected by any confounding variables. For example we found that the beneficial effects were more apparent in individuals with a lower number of years in education. This is important because it is likely that people who purchase such intervention products will tend to have a higher socio-economic status and significantly more developed educational background.

Overall, there is a need in psychology for an overhaul of how we measure cognitive interventions. We also need to ensure that we use the correct methodology (i.e. within subjects designs) and that we used the sorrect sample population. Unfortunatly many of the previous research which the cognitive reserve hypothesis and use-it-or-lose-it theory are based on have not done so."

My comment: Nick, I mostly agree. I will send you an email to learn more about your research. I find it concerning that people buy things without understanding what they are buying. But I also find concerning the number of people who have already done one million crossword puzzles and think that the single most important thing they can do next for their cognitive health and memory is...one more crossword puzzle. I find it even more concerning that, when I recently asked a group of around 200 assisted living professionals how many of them did offer menntally stimulating activities other than playing bingo and social receptions to their residents, less than a third of them raised their hands.

We only learn by trying things. Clinical trials are a superb way of learning. Initiatives like Alzheimer Australia's (promoting a particular cognitive training program) can also be very useful, if they use independent measures of cognition and quality of life. We also see many seniors housing facilities conducting pilot studies that will never be published as scientific research but help them find what tools may be helpful in their particular environments.

I could not agree more that a critical part of the puzzle, now largely missing, is the availability of inexpensive and high-quality cognitive assessments. And that will facilitate a more informed use of the growing array of options. Fortunately, we see very interesting signs  that this may change sooner than many people think.

2) David says (Posit Science Program Classic and InSight: Alzheimer's Australia):

"Alzheimer's Australia WA enlisted Curtin University Centre for Research on Ageing to conduct a literature and provider review into neuroplasticity and memory enhancement in older people. The result of a two year process of investigation and review by our organisation identified Posit Science as the only provider who had a significant body of clinical trial evidence to support the efficacy of their products.

Alzheimer's Australia supports the Posit Science programs as one way of staying mentally active (a dementia risk reduction strategy that we clearly support) that also provides proven individual benefit to memory and cognitive function in people experiencing age-related memory loss.

The organisation does not promote these programs to people with dementia, nor on the basis that using them will delay or prevent dementia. Very preliminary pilot study evidence indicates they may have some therapeutic benefit for people with early dementia or MCI, and Alzheimer's Australia WA is currently engaged with Curtin and Edith Cowan Universities here in Australia to undertake pilot studies to explore this further.

We are also undertaking an 18-month government-funded demonstration project to trial the use of these programs in residential communities, senior's fitness groups and the workplace, and evaluation of both individual benefit and the sustainability of each group model will be undertaken as part of this process."

My comment: David, great to read about the research initiatives you mention at the end of your comment. That is exactly what is needed-but my advice would be to compare more than one computer-based cognitive training method. It makes little sense to compare a computer-based training program with watching TV as the control group, for example. You may want to compare Posit science's 2 programs (which focus on clearly separate and narrow sensory-focused cognitive domains) with wider interventions (such as MindFit and Dakim mPower), and perhaps even with Nintendo Brain Age. From an delay of Alzheimer's symptoms, and even cognitive decline, point of view, continued and frequent use in the real world are likely to be very important  based on the available evidence, and it is far from clear than the Posit Science programs' strengths lie there.

People in Australia may find it a bit confusing that something actively endorsed and sold by an Alzheimer's Association brings the disclaimer "The organisation does not promote these programs to people with dementia, nor on the basis that using them will delay or prevent dementia". I'd assume that is what people think they are buying from you. Which is why I said in my post that, first, I think it is a great initiative to offer a mentally stimulating activity but, second, given the limited amount of long-term research, it would be a superb opportunity to add an independent cognitive assessment component, to measure the potential impact of one (or several) interventions and to start explaining to people how the brain works, what cognitive functions are, and how different lifestyle factors, such as physical exercise, contribute to cognitive health.

You are endorsing two products by Posit Science, one of which (Classic) has one published study behind, the other one (InSight) with, objectively, no direct clinical validation behind (InSight is a fundamentally new product, launched in March 2008 with 6 exercises: five are brand new, and one had been tested before on a variety of situations with very impressive results. There has been no correlation study done to date, to our knowledge, to validate whether X hours devoted to InSight produces same, better, or worse results as X hours devoted to that one tested exercise). Posit Science Classic program (for auditory processing training) has been used in many more studies (including IMPACT), but those results remain to be published.
Facing a similar situation, Susan Greenfield, Director of the Royal Institution in the UK and Alzheimer's expert, chose to endorse MindFit last year.   A number of agencies and communities in the US are choosing Dakim's system. I also hope you are aware of a number of working memory training programs that can be of much value to older adults.

A couple of days ago I published an interview with an executive from Allstate: they are using Posit Science Insight program as a research study first, to measure its effectiveness on improving driving safety of older adults, which makes for a beautiful initiative.

In short: at this point it is a judgment call, informed but not fully determined by the existing evidence, what program may benefit people most, Which is why 1) the most independent cognitive assessments we use to establish baselines and measure progress, the better, 2) informing consumers and professionals about the value and limitations of different approaches may be, in my view, what is really needed. Especially if it comes from an Alzheimer association, and with the kind of disclaimer you offered in your comment, 3) research initiatives like the one you outline are really needed, and I commend your association for taking the lead there.

The easy way out would have been "because research is not perfect, we opt to do nothing or little". Given what we know, it is good to try-and measure.

3) Dr. Thibeault writes (Brain Training and Cognitive Health: September News)

- "#3 above as it relates to gerontology. Come visit MENTAL GYMNASTIC classes in Oxnard, Camarillo, and Thousand Oaks, Calfornia. With more than 220 "students' there is widespread interest."

My comment:  I know there is a lot of interest in mental fitness related classes among lifelong learners, in fact I do teach such classes at several San Francisco Bay Area universities...but that was not really the point. The problem we identified was that many gerontology masters programs (this is, the training ground for the gerontologists of tomorrow) didn't seem to offer any brain/ cognitive-related classes, in a n obvious disconnect with one of the main areas of concern for people over 50. Btw, I hope to visit one your classes soon!

4) Charlie asks (Playing the Blame Game: Video Games Pros and Cons)

"Could you direct me to a link which has the Olson/Kutner study? I'm doing a paper for grad school and would love to include a reference to this work. Thanks for a very helpful and enlightening article. ck "

My comment: Olson & Kutner maintain a good website including research references. See grand theft childhood.

5) Jean writes (same post)

"I am still firmly on the fence and more than a little distressed about the time taken away from reading.
However, I must admit that when we played cowboys and indians or police and thief, the gun (toys, supplied by some adult) played a large part. Our movies were westerns, which by todays standards would have been heavily rated for violence and cultural inappropriateness. Yet most of us turned out okay. So I suppose given the right parenting environment, these children will be okay too."

My comment: You raise a good point... I appreciate the fact that the first thing that the researchers mentioned in the article did was to immerse themselves in several games, in order to analyze reality, not preconceived notions. I also agree that "most of us turned out okay"!

Enjoy the weekend!

1) Training Young Brains to Behave (New York Times)

2) Head Games (OpEd in New York Times)

3) Will Gerontology recognize the Brain? (American Society on Aging event)

4) Brain function gets a boost from walking (Los Angeles Times)

5) An idea whose time has (finally) come (McKnight's Long Term Care News)

6) Train your brain (Financial Times Germany)

7) Toman auge ejercicios que adiestran la mente (Milenio, Mexico)

8) Trois nouvelles études IDATE : Serious Games (Publi-News, France)

Links and commentary below. 

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1) Training Young Brains to Behave (New York Times)

- "But just as biology shapes behavior, so behavior can accelerate biology. And a small group of educational and cognitive scientists now say that mental exercises of a certain kind can teach children to become more self-possessed at earlier ages, reducing stress levels at home and improving their experience in school. Researchers can test this ability, which they call executive function, and they say it is more strongly associated with school success than I.Q."

Comment: we are happy to see the growing number of articles on the importance of executive functions and the role of schools in helping children "accelerate biology". In the next couple of weeks we will be publishing a fascinating interview with researcher Mike Posner precisely on this topic.

2) Head Games (OpEd in New York Times)

- "CHILDREN aged 5 to 18 suffer at least 96,000 sports-related concussions every year in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. Even more troubling, as many as 20 percent of all high school football players sustain concussions annually, studies show."

- "The only way to know for sure whether a concussion victim’s brain has returned to normal is to compare the results of neuropsychological tests conducted before and after the injury. That requires preparing athletes for the season by putting them through baseline testing."

Comment: Great OpEd, raising awareness of a problem with growing importance - not only in terms of sports concussions, but also car accidents, strokes, and a variety of life-events that may provoke brain damage - and introducing readers to the need for cognitive baselines for specific individuals.

Now, we will probably need to go further than the author of the OpEd suggests. There are simply not enough neuropsychologists in the whole planet to test one-person at a time for 4-hours each, and the cost of trying so would be astronomical.

The more realistic route is to combine a) fully-automated computer-based assessments as a baseline, b) the involvement of a neuropsychologist when needed, probably both to supervise the whole assessment program for a sports team, for example, and then to supervise the post-damage rehabilitation process.

3) Will Gerontology recognize the Brain? (American Society on Aging event)

A few weeks ago, during the American Society on Aging's Brain Health day, a participant made a comment along the lines, "I just completed my Masters in Gerontology at University XYZ. Despite my best efforts, I could not find a single brain-related class to attend as part of my studies. Which is why I decided to come to a conference like this".

Comment: Incredible that this happens in 2008, a decade after the "Decade of the Brain". Healthcare and cognitive science seem to have inhabited different universes for too long. I hope we start to see more active cross-pollination between both fields. Gerontology would be a great place to start, given the growing demand for preventive programs to contribute to the cognitive health of an aging population.

4) Brain function gets a boost from walking (Los Angeles Times):

Comment: A couple of recent studies have reinforced the lifelong potential for brain plasticity (the ability of the brain to rewire itself through experience) and the importance of physical exercise for cognitive vitality. One study focused on 1) adults over 50 with mild cognitive impairment, the other one on 2) stroke survivors. The press release for the second study contains this quote:"This is great news for stroke survivors because results clearly demonstrate that long-term stroke damage is not immutable and that with exercise it's never too late for the brain and body to recover," says Daniel Hanley, M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Indeed, there is no reason why the process of physical and cognitive rehabilitation (or "enhancement") should ever stop, either as part of formal therapy or as a lifestyle modification.

5) An idea whose time has (finally) come (McKnight's Long Term Care News):

"Like many revolutions, long-term care's recent embrace of technology-based brain fitness tools began quietly. Then it exploded."

Comment:  Indeed. We see more and more seniors housing and long-term care operators evaluate options to help maintain residents' cognitive health.

And, now, in case you want to use your language skills, you may also enjoy these recent articles:

6) Train your brain (Financial Times Germany):

"Ob Gehirntraining etwas nützt ist nicht bewiesen. Aber in den USA boomt der Markt, Hersteller kooperieren mit Krankenkassen und Seniorenheimen. In Deutschland fassen die Spiele gerade erst Fuß."

7) Toman auge ejercicios que adiestran la mente (Milenio, Mexico):

"La clave está en encontrar actividades que estimulen más nuestra memoria."

8) Trois nouvelles études IDATE : Serious Games (Publi-News, France):

"A travers une analyse détaillée des caractéristiques, des usages et des différentes familles de serious games, cette étude met en évidence les enjeux associés aux phases de conception, de développement et de diffusion des différents types de serious games."

Cheryl Olson had seen her teenage son play video games. But like many parents, she didn't know much about them.

Then in 2004 the U.S. Department of Justice asked Olson and her husband, Lawrence Kutner, to run a federally funded study of how video games affect adolescents.

Olson and Kutner are the co-founders and directors of the Harvard Medical School's Center for Mental Health and Media. Olson, a public health researcher, had studied the effects of media on behavior but had never examined video games, either in her research or in her personal life.

And so the first thing she did was watch over the shoulder of her son, Michael, as he played his video games. Then, two years into her research—which combined surveys and focus groups of junior high school students—Michael urged her to pick up a joystick. "I definitely felt they should be familiar with the games if they were doing the research," says Michael, who was 16 at the time and is now 18.

Olson started with the PC game Max Payne, which, she says, had an "engaging film noir-style plot" and "lots of shooting." Later she moved on to Star Trek: Bridge Commander, which turned out to be more realistic than she expected. "I found it really stressful, in my role as the captain, to have the crew members stand there watching me expectantly as I tried to figure out the controls and give them orders before the ship exploded," she says. With his father, Michael played James Bond games. "He would thoroughly trounce me," recalls Kutner, a psychologist.

Olson and Kutner—who are publishing a book based on their research, Grand Theft Childhood? this spring—were entering a brave new world of play that is closed to many parents. For millions of kids and quite a few adults, video games are central to their play and imaginations. Today the American video game industry makes almost twice as much as movie theaters, and consumers spent $18.85 billion on video-game hardware, software, and accessories in 2007—triple what they spent in 2000. Several authoritative studies, including Olson and Kutner's, have found that 70 to 80 percent of boys and approximately 20 percent of girls now play video games on an average day.

Their popularity—and the bloody, pyrotechnic action of some games—have fueled a wide range of fears. Politicians, pundits, preachers, and many parents accuse video games of displacing more wholesome, traditional forms of play and contributing to ills such as childhood obesity, poor school grades, and, most of all, kid-on-kid violence. Their fears echo earlier concerns about movies, comic books, rock and roll, and hip-hop, which all provoked opposition when they first appeared.

As a result, advocacy organizations like Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence and the Parents Television Council have pressed for laws limiting video game violence. Since 2001, federal judges have rejected nine attempts to regulate video games, citing First Amendment protection. Censors abroad have had more luck: Last year, both the British Board of Film Classification and the Irish Film Censor's Office banned the game Manhunt 2 for its "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying."

It is hard to argue that a game like Manhunt 2 is good for kids. And yet according to the market-research organization NPD Group, only 16 percent of all games sold in 2007 shared Manhunt 2's rating of "M" ("Mature") for violent or sexual content, while 57 percent of games sold were rated nonviolent and safe for children. Video games today are defined by their diversity, ranging from the innocent quests of Donkey Kong to the complex strategy of Civilization to the amoral brutality of Grand Theft Auto. Even video games with violence in them—like movies and books with violent content—are not all the same. What's more, new research shows that individuals experience the violence differently.

Indeed, the more one examines the range of games on the market today, as well as the considerable amount of research devoted to studying them, the more one realizes how difficult it is to generalize about the games and their effect on kids. "It's a lot more complicated than people think," says Olson. "We've been worried about the wrong things and maybe overlooking some more subtle things that we might want to give more attention to." Kutner adds, "This is so pervasive in our society that it's something we need to pay attention to, even if we don't have kids, because it influences how people think, just as mass media of all types over the past couple hundred years have influenced how people think."

Playing together

Olson, Kutner, and colleagues ultimately analyzed 1,254 junior high school students, making their $1.5 million study the largest and most authoritative of its kind. They gave written surveys to the entire student body at schools across the country and organized in-depth focus groups with kids in the Boston area who had played M-rated games. In the focus groups, they also talked to about half of the kids' parents—which, Kutner says, revealed that many moms and dads had little idea of what went on in the games their kids played.

In addition to game-playing habits, the researchers looked at the emotional, psychological, and socioeconomic situations of the kids, trying to understand which kids were most at risk to engage in violent behavior. Their results, which they started to publish last year, challenge many popular assumptions, while also validating some existing concerns and raising a few new ones.

Their study immediately debunked two myths: that gamers are antisocial, and that the kids who play them are out of shape. For boys especially, they found that today video games are a way to socialize and connect with their friends, and that this bonding sometimes facilitates, rather than discourages, participation in physical play. "Since game play is often a social activity for boys, nonparticipation could be a marker of social difficulties," Olson and Kutner, along with their Harvard colleague Eugene V. Beresin, write in last October's issue of the Psychiatric Times. "These boys [who rarely played games with friends] were also more likely than others to report problems such as getting into fights." Olson suggests that today's video games can serve as a source of social prestige for otherwise dorky teenage boys, in the same way that sports bolster the popularity of athletic boys. It's an inversion of the older concern that video game play might cause social isolation.

And instead of siphoning time away from sports and outdoor activities, Olson and Kutner discovered that boys who played sports video games were actually much more likely to play those games in real life. "These are kids who are already into football or skateboarding," says Kutner. In focus groups, the researchers heard that "they will use it as a way of improving their skills, for mastering a new move. They'll perfect it virtually, and then go out on the court or the street and try it with a real basketball or a real skateboard."

This finding is echoed in another new study led by University of Texas, Austin, psychologist Elizabeth A. Vandewater. Based on surveys of 1,491 kids, Vandewater and her colleagues also found that playing video games didn't take time away from sports or other active leisure activities. And like Olson and Kutner's study, their research discovered that game-playing and non-gaming adolescents spent the same amounts of time with family and friends. Moreover, gamers often played with friends and saw it as a way of bonding.

But if video games are not displacing real-world play and socializing, then where is the time to play them coming from? When the University of Texas researchers compared game-playing and non-gaming adolescents, they found that playing games cut into reading and homework. In results published last year in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, they report that "adolescent gamers spent 30 percent less time reading and 34 percent less time doing homework." (Depressingly, even non-gaming boys spent only eight minutes a day with a book.)

Iowa State University psychologist Craig Anderson, a leading expert on research into video-game violence, says that while video-game play does appear to hurt school performance, this has little to do with the content of the games. "The best bet at this point is that it has to do with the amount of time taken away from other activities that would typically improve school performance," he says. "It's no different from TV: Kids who watch a lot of TV typically are not spending it on educational programs."

The bottom line, according to both studies, is that video games become a social, health, and educational problem when played to the exclusion of other activities—which, Olson points out, can be true of any pastime, from sports to hanging out with friends.

"I played games along with other things," says Olson's son Michael of his childhood. "It never really supplanted anything. I was outside. I was meeting with friends, building forts in the backyard. But everyone else was playing the games and that was part of how we played together."

Single-person shooter

But unlike movies and TV, which are fundamentally passive viewing experiences, violent video games call for players to actively shoot, stab, or bludgeon enemies to death. Does research show that these violent games promote belligerence and bloodshed in the real world?

"A movie's the same, even if you watch it multiple times," Kutner points out. "You may get additional insights, but it's the same thing. With video games, you are interacting with the movie and it changes based on that, and so it's a different way of thinking. In a way, we diminish these programs by calling them games. In other contexts, the same thing would be called a simulation."

In his 1999 book Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a psychologist and historian, argues that "single-person shooter" video games replicate military train-ing, lowering children's innate resistance to killing other human beings, without also instilling in them the military discipline that might keep impulsive behavior in check.

Cho Seung-Hui, who murdered 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007, was initially reported to have played video games obsessively (a claim since debunked by the Virginia Tech panel that investigated the incident), and many commentators have instinctively linked game violence with campus killings. Cho "adopted the type of behavior of protagonists in films and computer games," wrote University of Virginia psychologist Dewey Cornell shortly after the massacre. "The special effects and gratuitous violence seen in the mass media ultimately desensitize humanity, and Cho's case illustrates how dangerous the repercussions can be."

The obvious problem with this charge is that millions of kids and adults play video games every day without ever engaging in any violent behavior. In fact, as video games have surged in popularity during the past decade, youth violence has declined.

According to a study released in January of 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of school killings fell considerably from 1992 to 2006—a period of time that includes the notorious 1999 Columbine massacre. Many leaders, including President Bill Clinton, blamed the Columbine tragedy on the killers' fascination with games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.

But when the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education analyzed 37 incidents of school violence and sought to develop a profile of school shooters, they discovered that the most common traits among shooters were that they were male and had histories of depression and attempted suicide. While many of the killers-like the vast majority of young males—did play video games, this 2002 study did not find a relationship between game play and school shootings. In fact, only one eighth of the shooters showed any special interest in violent video games, far less than the number of shooters who seemed attracted to books and movies with violent content.

In short, trying to curb violent video games (or targeting kids who play video games) would seem to have little or no effect on levels of school violence.

However, the story does not end there: Video games may not directly cause school shootings, but dozens of empirical studies have shown a strong link between video game play and aggressive feelings. When Craig Anderson and colleagues analyzed 54 independent studies involving 4,262 participants in 2001, they found that playing violent video games increased aggressive emotions and behaviors, and measurably decreased helpful behaviors. Researchers at the University of Missouri monitored brain activity in video-game players and found that the games trigger a part of the brain that drives people to act aggressively. And in 2004, a team of researchers studied 607 eighth- and ninth-grade students in the Midwest and discovered that there was indeed a correlation between playing violent video games and getting into fist fights, though the study was not able to say if one caused the other.

That last study reflects the chicken-and-egg conundrum of a lot of video-game research: Are troubled kids more likely to play violent video games, or do violent video games help create troubled kids? "That's a question we can't answer right now," says Cheryl Olson. For decades, researchers have been trying to untangle the constellation of factors involved in youth violence, from quality of neighborhoods to home environment to media influence, but so far they haven't been able to determine the degree to which any one of them contributes.

Part of the reason why data seem to contradict each other, Olson suggests, might lie in the disparate motivations players bring to the games. "Ours was the first study to ask a decent-sized group of kids, "Why do you play [M-rated] video games?'" she says. "We came up with 17 or 18 reasons why they might play. And we were struck that many of the kids said they were playing to help with emotional regulation—to get their anger out, to feel less lonely, to reduce stress, a lot of things we didn't expect." For these kids, Olson suggests, violent video games might play a positive role in managing unruly emotions. "If I had a bad day at school," said one focus-group participant, "I'll play a violent video game, and it just relieves my stress."

Craig Anderson isn't convinced by this "emotional regulation" hypothesis. "Kids report that's what is going on," he says, "but in fact there's no evidence that actually happens."

In fact, Olson and Anderson could both find support from a new study by psychologists in New Zealand and Australia. The study measured the individual personality traits of 126 teenagers, then tested their reactions to the violent video game Quake II. They found that playing the game made hostile people angrier, helped calm more introverted personalities, and had no apparent affect on people with mild and stable personalities. In other words, one kid might indeed play the game to blow off steam in a healthy way, even as it feeds another's anger.

Method acting

Olson and Kutner's work also suggests a positive and paradoxical dimension of playing video games with violence in them: helping kids to grapple with life's scariest experiences.

Olson reports that many kids in their focus groups said they liked playing violent video games because they knew the fighting wasn't happening in real life. In fact, many of the kids reported being much more scared by TV news. "They told us, "The news is real, and that makes me scared.'" In contrast, they could control the violence in video games. "There are things you can try out in a game that you can't do in real life," says Olson. "Some of the boys in our focus groups really liked the fact that you could choose to be a good guy or a bad guy. They can ask, "What kind of person would I end up being?'"

Olson's son Michael says he and his friends do not play games just because of violent content. Instead, they are looking for a compelling storyline, intriguing characters, and interesting choices. "A good game to me makes you feel like a method actor," he says. "It just draws you into the story and draws you into a character."

These insights resonate with research into children's pretend play. In studies of kids with imaginary friends, University of Oregon psychologist Marjorie Taylor has found that kids often create pretend characters who do sinister, nasty, and even violent things. (See Taylor's essay on page 28 of this issue.) "Like adults who think things through before they act, this gives children an opportunity to play it through before they encounter the situation in real life," says Taylor. "If something is bothering you, you can control it or manipulate it in the world of pretending. That's a way of developing emotional mastery."

U.S. Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Posner offered a similar conclusion in his 2001 opinion blocking an Indianapolis ordinance that would have regulated video-game arcades. "Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low," he wrote. "It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it."

That doesn't mean that anything goes. Olson says many precautionary steps can be taken to mitigate the harm that violent video games might cause. "I would definitely want to show realistic consequences," she says, when asked how she would design one of these games. "There are a number of games with storylines that show the consequences of violence: Kids are getting orphaned or people are suffering." She says the violence should never be depicted as funny, or the perpetrators as attractive, and the players should be rewarded for mercy and moral choices—as they are in the game SWAT, for example.

But to help kids make the right choices about video games, parents and other adults first need to understand what kids are playing. Olson and Kutner urge parents and researchers alike to learn more about these games, and even play them with kids. This will help both groups develop a more nuanced understanding of gaming and be able to tell the good games from the bad ones.

"It's a great thing developmentally for the child to teach the parent something," says Olson. "A lot of kids said they'd love for their parents to play games with them."

-- Jeremy Adam Smith is the managing editor of Greater Good and author of Twenty-First-Century Dad, forthcoming in 2009 from Beacon Press. We bring you this post thanks to our collaboration with Greater Good Magazine, a UC-Berkeley-based quarterly magazine that highlights ground breaking scientific research into the roots of compassion and altruism.

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For recent examples on the positive value of some games (for children and adults), and how to navigate the field from a cognitive health point of view:

- Interviews with Brain Scientists

- Product Evaluation Checklist

- Nintendo Brain Training and Math in UK Schools

- Posit Science Program Classic and InSight and Alzheimer's Australia

altruism, Blame Game, brain activity, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheryl Olson, cognitive health, compassion, Craig Anderson, Dave Grossman, Department of Education, Elizabeth Vandewater, Greater Good, Harvard Medical School, Jeremy Adam Smith, lousy grades, Marjorie Taylor, Mental Health, obesity, play, psychologists, reading, relieve stress, scientific research, socialization, UC Berkeley, video game research, video games, Video Games Pros and Cons, violence]]> http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/09/26/playing-the-blame-game-video-games-pros-and-cons/feed/ http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/09/23/training-young-brains-to-behave/ http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/09/23/training-young-brains-to-behave/#comments Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:45:26 +0000 Alvaro Fernandez Uncategorized Cognitive Neuroscience Education ADD/ADHDAdele DiamondbehaviourBiologyBrain Trainingcognitivecognitive sciencecognitive scientistsEducationexecutive functionIQmental exercisesprefrontal cortexstress levelstrain young brains http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/09/23/training-young-brains-to-behave/ Great article in the New York Times titled Training Young Brains to Behave. A couple of quotes:

- "But just as biology shapes behavior, so behavior can accelerate biology. And a small group of educational and cognitive scientists now say that mental exercises of a certain kind can teach children to become more self-possessed at earlier ages, reducing stress levels at home and improving their experience in school. Researchers can test this ability, which they call executive function, and they say it is more strongly associated with school success than I.Q."

- “We know that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until the 20s, and some people will ask, ‘Why are you trying to improve prefrontal abilities when the biological substrate is not there yet?’ ” said Adele Diamond, a professor of developmental cognitive science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “I tell them that 2-year-olds have legs, too, which will not reach full length for 10 years or more — but they can still walk and run and benefit from exercise.”

Full article: Training Young Brains to Behave.

Related interviews with scientists:

- Learning & The Brain: Interview with Robert Sylwester
- Memory training and attention deficits: interview with Notre Dame's Bradley Gibson

- The Art of Changing the Brain: Interview with Dr. James Zull

- Brain Connection: Eric Jensen on Learning and the Brain

While it is true that we often tend to believe all this "brain fitness" stuff is most relevant to our parents and/ or grandparents, trust me, if you are reading this, you need it. Everyone with a brain can benefit from learning about how his or her brain works and how to maintain it with proper care.

And, from a company's point of view, aren't "talent" and "human capital" really all about brain fitness and cognitive performance?

The Conference Board and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives (descriptions below) published in 2008 a 44-page booklet to "teach simple, practical strategies for incorporating brain-friendly practices into day-to-day life".  Your Brain at work: Making the science of cognitive fitness to work for you is the first of three planned booklets on cognitive fitness.

The Conference Board and the Dana Alliance have allowed SharpBrains to share the following Action Plan with our readers, straight from Your Brain at work brochure. At the bottom of this post we also share instructions on how individuals and companies can get their own copies of this excellent brochure.

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Your Cognitive Fitness Strategy: An Action Plan for Brain Health

Write it down.
Putting your goals in writing makes them more meaningful. Adding why you want to achieve each goal is a real motivator.

Take baby steps.
You’ll feel overwhelmed if you try to address every aspect of brain health at once. Set priorities.

Give yourself a timeframe.
And remember: That implies giving yourself enough time to work at and master your goals.

Be realistic.
People who try to do too much too soon often get discouraged and give up altogether. Don’t be a victim of your own ambition. If your goals seem impossible, revise them.

Now, determine your baseline. Think about how you measure up against the healthy brain practices below.

Social Interaction
Who did I see today, and for what purposes?
What did I do to reconnect with someone I care about today?

Physical Activity
How many minutes did I walk today, including around the office?
How did I work exercise into my day?
Did I “walk and talk” at work, rather than emailing or phoning?

Cognitive Stimulation
What did I learn today?
What routine task did I approach differently today?
Did I challenge my mind? Did I do anything just for fun?

Diet
I ate ___ servings of fruits and vegetables today.
3 brain-healthy things I ate today are: ____________________________________

Stress Management
How was my stress level today?
What caused me the greatest stress today? What triggered it?
How did I cope? How did I relax?

Sleep
How well did I sleep last night? How long? Did I awaken during the night?
If sleep was poor, do I know why?
Did I feel drowsy during the day?
Did I nap?

How you answer these questions may help you determine which areas of brain health you need to focus on as you map out your cognitive fitness plan.

Note: This content has been reprinted with permission of The Conference Board and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives; do not reproduce without permission from The Conference Board/ DABI.

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How to Request copies of Your Brain At Work 

- Individuals may request free single sample printed copies from the Dana Alliance by emailing dabiinfo@dana.org

- For company sales inquiries, please contact The Conference Board's Customer Service at at 212 339 0345. (more information at http://www.conference-board.org/Dana-Alliance/).

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The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives is a nonprofit organization of more than 265 leading neuroscientists, is committed to advancing public awareness about the progress and promise of brain research and to disseminating information on the brain in an understandable and accessible fashion. Recent neuroscience advances have shown the potential for conquering the devastating diseases and disorders of the brain that afflict millions of people, ranging from cocaine addiction to learning disabilities, from Alzheimer's disease to spinal cord injuries. Supported entirely by the Dana Foundation, the Dana Alliance does not fund research or make grants.

The Conference Board is the world's pre-eminent business membership and research organization.  The Conference Board creates and disseminates knowledge about management and the marketplace to help businesses strengthen their performance and better serve society.  Working as a global, independent, not-for-profit membership organization in the public interest, The Conference Board conducts research, convenes conferences, makes forecasts, assesses trends, publishes information and analysis, and brings executives together to learn from one another.

This is the same reporter who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury when a roadside bomb detonated next to his vehicle in January 29th 2006 as he was covering news developments in Iraq.

Today we are fortunate to interview Lee Woodruff, Bob’s wife and pillar throughout his recovery. Lee and Bob co-wrote the fantastic book In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing.

Alvaro Fernandez: Lee, many thanks for your time. I was amazed reading your book, where you share your journey, and then watching Bob interview John Edwards, the best display I can imagine of his recovery. Can you please summarize for us what Bob -and you- went through since January 2006?

Lee Woodruff: As you know, Bob suffered a life-threatening traumatic brain injury in Iraq. He was promptly taken under military care and underwent a series of surgeries for head injuries, with a joint Army & Air Force neurosurgical team in Iraq, in a US Army Medical Command hospital in Germany, and at Bethesda Naval Hospital, back here in the US.

During this time, spanning around 4 months, he spent 37 days in coma, and his skull had to be surgically rebuilt. The cognitive rehabilitation process started then, at a medical facility closer home.

Can you please explain what kind of cognitive rehab Bob has gone though-both in a formal way, with a therapist, and informally, on his own?

The first thing I’d like to say is that rehab is a long process. Doctors told me that Bob, despite the severity of his injuries, had better chances to recover than other victims, because of the reserve of neurons and connections he had built thanks to an intellectually stimulating and diverse life, including living in China for several years and traveling to dozens of countries, having worked as a lawyer and as a journalist, and his overall curiosity and desire to learn. It seems that more and more research shows how people who are mentally active throughout their lives, either through their jobs, or doing puzzles, sudokus…are, of course up to a point, better prepared to deal with problems such as TBI.

Still, recovery is a long process. Bob had six months of structured cognitive therapy focused on speech and languages areas, because that was the part of his brain that had been most damaged. The therapist identified the main tasks for him to work on in a challenging, yet familiar way, usually asking Bob, for example, to read the New York Times, then try to remember what he had read, and write a short essay on his thoughts and impressions.

Since then he has, in a sense, used his work in the documentary To Iraq and Back and other projects at ABC as his informal, but very effective, way to keep improving. I am amazed to watch in real time how, even today, how he gets better and better. To give you an example of his motivation to recover: he recently took on Chinese lessons to see if working on that also helped him.

In the book, Bob says that, if he had to say in one word what he was experiencing during much of the recovery, he would use the word “slower”. His brain was slower at processing new information, at remembering words. What progress has he experienced?

A lot. He is not exactly at the same level he was before the injury, but he is again an amazing reporter, father, and husband. And I see progress every month, so we have hope that he will continue getting better and better.

Sometimes Bob tells me he is not the person I married. And then, as I mention in the book, I laugh and reply "I am not either. I'm older, wiser and more wrinkled."
I have learned to trust him. Especially in the beginning, it wasn’t always easy to fully accept and follow his judgment, but I have seen how little by little he grew perfectly able to recreate his role as a husband and as a father, and to recreate our respective roles in the family. It has been wonderful to see that happen. It has been a miracle.

Bob has been a very fortunate survivor of traumatic brain injury. There are over a million cases every year of TBI. Many of them are military-related (a recent RAND study estimates that over 300,000 US service members have sustained TBI during assignments in Iraq or Afghanistan), but also happen in civilian life, mainly due to traffic accidents or sports concussions. What do we know today about how to prevent and treat TBI?

The Iraq War is literally re-writing the book, the way researchers and doctors see and tackle the problem. Most of the progress is happening in the military, but I hope that transfers into benefits for civilians, too. From a preventive point of view, the military has been stepping up to improve the body armor of soldiers, and I can now see why wearing seat belts as we drive and helmets as we bike can make a big difference.

From the recovery point of view, there is much more optimism and hope today than only a few years ago about how many TBI patients can improve, if given the opportunity to, through a supportive environment and physical and cognitive therapy. The military has recognized the problem of the so-called “Walking Wounded’, and is devoting significant resources to analyzing best options and treating them. As we chatted earlier, the Army recently announced that from now on soldiers will get a cognitive screening before they get deployed to the field, so that in case there are problems that screening can serve as a good baseline to compare functions to.

But the improvement in the area is only starting. We need to see much progress.

Can you now tell us more about the Bob Woodruff Foundation for Traumatic Brain Injury? What are your main priorities?

Bob and I are devoting much time to raising awareness of the problem and the need to find and implement good solutions for cognitive care. Our foundation supports community, grass-roots approaches to helping TBI survivors and their families. Given the huge scale of the problem among the military, and the fact that Bob survived thanks to the excellent care he received from the military along the way, we are focusing first on helping military victims.

For example, we recently funded four scholarships for TBI-related research, and also bought 300 mattresses for a small non-profit that helps patients and their spouses rebuild their lives once they have to leave Army bases-many of whom cannot afford to move all their belongings, including beds and mattresses, out of the bases.

And there are many more things to do. For example, while many more soldiers are  getting better care, that is not always the case with National Guard reservists who, despite having a dedicated branch of the armed forces oversee their progress, are often at more at risk of living with undetected TBI since they don’t have to report at bases once they are back.

It is also not clear that the military (as well as insurance companies) are always willing to pay for the long-term costs of care.

What are some specific ways people can support the work of your foundation?

They can visit our new website, Bob Woodruff Foundation (http://remind.org/), to learn about the problems and to donate funds, no matter how big or small. We are also holding a fundraising event in NYC in November to raise awareness.

But probably the most important thing every one can do is to recognize the sacrifices the soldiers have made, and find active ways to look for them and help them in their own communities. Soldiers and their families often have grown in a culture of self-reliance, of not asking for help, so here we all need to take the initiative to figure out how we can help. Ask yourself, how can I help the TBI survivors in my neighborhood? Perhaps by giving them a job, or offering them help or training, so they can secure one? How can I help their spouses and families maintain healthy and happy environments? Perhaps by offering them free movie tickets? A massage?

Lee, many thanks for those suggestions. I do have friends at a local Veteran Affairs hospital, and will follow-up on those great ideas. I hope our readers can also think of ways they can help (and exercise their brains along the way). Is there something else you would like to add, that you would know everyone to be aware of?

I’d say never give up. We have seen how Bob has recovered, which I think is a miracle. Let’s simply try our best to help everyone out there.

For further information:

- Book: In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing
- Foundation: Bob Woodruff Foundation.

Related interviews:

- Build Your Cognitive Reserve - Dr. Yaakov Stern

- Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg on Cognitive Training

- Cognitive Simulations: Interview with Prof. Daniel Gopher

For today's edition, let's imagine all participants sitting around a table leading a lively Questions & Answers session, discussing as a group, listening, talking. (And, well, aging.)

Q: What is aging?
Ms. Wikipedia: "Ageing or aging (American English) is the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow and expand over time, while others decline. Reaction time, for example, may slow with age, while knowledge of world events and wisdom may expand."

Aging may not be the sexiest  of words in our vocabulary. Unless, of course (as I heard somewhere recently but can't properly credit), you consider the most common alternative.

Q: If the objective of anti-aging research is to extend lifespan, isn't there a risk that we may neglect quality of life. After all, would people really like to spend more years afflicted by the diseases and the decline that often come with age?
Ed (dragged to the discussion by Chris and Alvaro): I have relatively good news to share. A recent  University of Southern Denmark found that the proportion of elderly Danes who manage to remain independent holds steady at about 30-35 percent between the ages of 90 to 100. This means that from society's point of view, exceptional long-life won't lead to exceptional levels of disability. This pattern seems consistant across different lifespans.

Q: OK, so at least it is not all doom and gloom. Now, can we really expect we will one day be able to extend not only mean but maximum lifespan?
Chris: well, potentially yes, but first of all we need to better  understand how premature aging resembles extended longevity, and the source of transcriptional change as we age, to measure biological age in a meaningful way. Given the observation that expression of gene X (or hormone Z) changes with age, one must next ask: How do we know whether this change reflects a causative feature of aging, a defensive response to another age-related change, a passive response of no great import, an epiphenomenon, or an artifact of the experimental system?.

Q: Let's now discuss the concept of "lifespan plasticity" and the status of the research today.
Jake (dragged too): Research on lab organisms such as yeast, worms and mice has encouraged the notion that lifespan is plastic-this is, it can be extended. Nature just published a great review of anti-aging science, combining cautious optimism with a call not to head down too quickly to the Natural medicine store for resveratrol in a pill, for example. Caloric-restriction, and some compounds, seem to influence pathways that regulate overall metabolism, and have an impact on lifespan. However, none of the drugs tested have shown lengthen life span in healthy rodents much less humans. we also don't know whether inhibiting pro-aging pathways in humans will have the same effect that it has in lower organisms. Further, we still have to figure out how to distinguish between disease and what is called intrinsic aging --- or aging not caused by disease.

Q: In short, there is much potential, but more research needs to be done. Now, does existing research support specific intervention to expand Healthspan (not just lifespan, but lifespan in a healthy condition).
Ward: Exercise is an obvious first step. A number of studies have shown how consistent cardiovascular exercise can have modest effects on mean lifespan (usually in the 8-12%) and also help maintain functional ability, therefore contributing to longer healthspan.

Q: We should also consider our Brain Healthspan. After all, "we" are a function of our brains. Anything we can do there?
Adrian: exercise helps there too, both by helping maintain cognitive function and by promoting neurogenesis and neuron survival.
Alvaro: the brain reserve theory adds light on the importance of lifelong mental stimulation, but still need to better undertand  the neurobiology of aging and cognitive decline. Let's take a look at some of Santiago Ramon y Cajal's recollections of his life. On the one hand, was aware of the potential for lifelong neuroplasticity. On the other, he could do little to prevent his own cognitive decline.

Q: Can food also play a role in maintaining brain health as we age?
Pascale: For a great in-depth review of the effects of food on the brain you can check out Fernando Gomez-Pinilla’s recent article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, discussing the respective merits of Omega-3 fatty acids, folic acid , flavonoids, antioxidant foods. Please note that most of the studies showing positive effects of these nutrients have been conducted in mice.

Q: Let's go back to the concept of expanding Healthspan. Are there public health implications
Liz: I'd say preventing falls among the elderly - falls are a leading cause of serious injury and death among the U.S. elderly. Juergen Bludau, chief geriatrician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, says the medical community needs to do a better job support quality of life, by which he meant two things: as much freedom from the ravages of disease as possible, and the retention of enough function for active engagement in the world.

Q: Let's explore future directions for research in the area. What's the recent deal with autophagy?
Reason: You might think of autophagy as a form of self-maintenance for your cells: it is the destruction of damaged and older cellular components such that newly built components can take their place. You may expect to see some autophagy-enhancing drugs appear in the next years, once we better understand, for example, how to manipulate the tumor suppressor protein p53, which has a major impact on organismal aging.

Q: Other interesting areas?
Abel: I'd suggest pay attention to the properties of muscadine skin extract . Some companies are in fact already selling those as dietary supplements (i.e., products not evaluated by the FDA for either effectiveness or safety), despite weak evidence.
Laura: we also need to pay more attention to neurodegenerative disorder such as Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), a rare sporadic disease with average age of onset at 59 years (+/- 7), and average duration being 7 years.

Q: Fun discussion...but we need to wrap up now. Any volunteer to provide some final words of wisdom before we go back to our busy daily lives?
Anne: Let's remember, Existence is wonderful. I look forward to learning more of what such creatures as mole-rats and echidnas may be able to teach us about themselves, about aging, and about the curious interplay between metabolism, chemistry, activity, and all the other processes that make life possible.

Thank you all for your participation. Please remember that Hourglass IV will appear on October 14th at Existence is Wonderful.

Incredible that this happens in 2008, a decade after the "Decade of the Brain".

Healthcare and cognitive science seem to have inhabited different universes for too long. I hope we start to see more active cross-pollination between both fields. Gerontology would be a great place to start, given the growing demand for preventive programs to contribute to the cognitive health of an aging population.

1)  Memory problems: Adults 50-years-old and over with mild cognitive impairment (an advanced form of memory problems, but pre-dementia) were asked to exercise for three 50-minute sessions per week for 24 weeks (a total of 60 hours). Results: there were small, but measurable, cognitive benefits even 18 months after the start of the program (around a year after the supervised exercise activities ended).
Study: Nicola T. Lautenschlager et al. Effect of Physical Activity on Cognitive Function in Older Adults at Risk for Alzheimer Disease. Journal of the American Medical Association, 3 September 2008 [link]

2) Stroke Rehab: the study showed how sustained physical rehabilitation can have a beneficial brain impact for stroke survivors, and that the effect was more clear by walking in a treadmill (as a cardiovascular exercise) than by doing assisted stretching exercises.

The press release for the other study, Treadmill Exercise Retrains Brain And Body Of Stroke Victims, contains this quote:"This is great news for stroke survivors because results clearly demonstrate that long-term stroke damage is not immutable and that with exercise it's never too late for the brain and body to recover," says Daniel Hanley, M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Indeed, there is no reason why the process of physical and cognitive rehabilitation (or "enhancement") should ever stop, either as part of formal therapy or as a lifestyle modification.
This Los Angeles Times article, Brain function gets a boost from walking, provides good commentary on both studies, and includes this nice quote:

"The act of doing a movement over and over can also stimulate the brain's neurocircuits, he adds, resulting in activity in various regions of the brain. That activity may decrease over time as the body becomes more efficient at the activity. But other stimulation can have an effect --- while a person walks outside with a friend, for example, the brain is guiding a number of activities, such as talking and observing."

Which is why we always emphasize the importance of  novelty and challenge. Doing the same thing over and over and over and over, with the same level of difficulty, brings limited if any cognitive benefits.