Spectacular article by Dr. Denise Park in this month’s Cerebrum:

Working Later in Life May Facilitate Neural Health

- “Carmi Schooler at the National Institutes of Health, using a technique that allowed him to assess causal relationships, found that adults who performed intellectually challenging jobs across their life span showed more cognitive flexibility in late adulthood than those who performed less demanding jobs.”
- “Perhaps the most compelling evidence regarding the impact of novel experiences on brain volume and function comes from a study at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Adults with a mean age of 59 spent three months learning to juggle three balls. Although only about half the participants were able to achieve competence in this complex skill, those who succeeded had increased volume in a mediotemporal area of the visual cortex as well as the nucleus accumbens and the hippocampus, suggesting that sustained novel experience can increase the sizes of neural structures. Notably, the changes in the nucleus accumbens and hippocampus were Read the rest of this entry »

A beautiful initiative, featured in the New York Times today:
Coming Full Circle:

- “In a typical Montessori classroom, teachers use category-sorting exercises to help young students see patterns and connections. But the participants in this group were mostly in their 80s and on the other side of the cognitive development curve. They are residents at an assisted-living facility for people with dementia called Hearthstone at the Esplanade, which has six other homes in New York State and Massachusetts. Since July the residents have participated in a full-time program of Montessori-based activities designed for people with memory deficiencies.”

- “A common misconception about people with dementia, Dr. Camp said, is that they no longer learn. But they do: residents learn to find their dining room table, for example, well after the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. And because they no longer have the higher brain function they had as adults, he reasoned, they are well suited to Montessori.”

Full article: Coming Full Circle.

Related posts:

- Alzheimer’s Risk and Prevention: the Cognitive Reserve

- Your comments on cognitive training, Posit Science, Alzheimer’s Australia, gerontology, games

A very promising cognitive training study was presented last week by Helena Westerberg at the annual meeting of the CNS: Cognitive Neuroscience Society held in San Francisco, and Dr. David Rabiner brings us the highlights.

- Alvaro

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The study was conducted with a general adult population, rather than adults diagnosed with ADHD, as was the case in previous published working memory training studies,

The study was a randomized, controlled trial of working memory training conducted with 55 younger (20-30 years old) and 45 older (60-70 years old) adults. Participants were randomly assigned to receive 5 weeks of active Cogmed Working Memory Training or a placebo training intervention. In the active training group, the difficulty of the working memory training tasks continually adjusted to match the individual’s performance. As a result, individuals were consistently challenged to perform at their highest possible level. In the placebo training group, the difficulty level remained constant across the training period such that improvements in working memory were not expected to occur.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just wanted to let you know that we have created this new Teasers section to serve as a repository of the best Mind and Brain Games we offer through the blog. If you need to quickly exercise your brain after Thanksgiving holiday…you can go ahead and find a selection of 50 Brain Teasers. Enjoy!

Visit: Teasers section

Here is question 17 of 25 from Brain Fitness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Questions.

Question:
Are there herbal and vitamin supplements that will protect my memory?

Key Points:

• Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids found in cold-water fish may be helpful to long term brain health.
• Folic acid may also be helpful to both cognitive function and hearing.
• Ginkgo biloba and DHEA do not appear to help your brain.
• There is still more research to be done and never dismiss the placebo effect!

Answer:
Read the rest of this entry »