Salon.com published yesterday a thought-provoking article focused on Posit Science’s Brain Fitness Program, titled Buff Up Your Brain, that combined a) some pretty good analysis and great points about that specific program and justifiable (to a point) criticism of the commercial tone of a recent PBS Special, with b) the error of confusing a tree with the forest, that led the author to make several unwarranted claims regarding the field.

Computerized cognitive training has been around since way before Posit Science, and will be here way beyond Posit Science (and SharpBrains, and Salon.com), and their auditory processing product-featured in the PBS Special- is not, in our view, the most particularly impressive example. Well-directed cognitive exercise can enhance mental skills and transfer to real-life outcomes, acting as a good complementary tool, when used properly, to other lifestyle options and tools.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the many Sharp Brains around, who is up to date of everything related to brain health and fitness (yes, Jeanne, that’s you! thanks for being such a great bureau chief!) has sent us a very interesting press note on how brain fitness and training can be applied in the sports performance world. I haven’t been able to track down the research behind the specific programs mentioned in the article, but the theoretical rationale makes sense based on similar programs we are familiar with: you can see below a summary of our interview with Prof. Daniel Gopher, scientific mind behind computer-based cognitive simulations for military pilots and for basketball players.

The note Sports Vision Training Takes Athletes to New Frontiers explains how

• “Specialty sports vision facilities are helping athletes train skills that many believed were “untrainable”; skills like anticipation, field vision, timing, sport intelligence, game tempo, reaction speed, focus and concentration.”
• “What has everyone all worked up is the knowledge that they can actually train athletic skills that many believed were “untrainable.” We’re talking about intangibles like anticipation, field vision, timing, sport intelligence, game tempo, reaction speed, focus and concentration. “One of the worst mistakes an athlete can make is to believe that you’re either born with or without these kinds of skills, and that they’re consequently not trainable,” says Brian Stammer, editor of SportsVision Magazine. “If you want to be the best athlete you can be, you must do exercises to condition and sharpen your sensory system, including visual, auditory and brain-processing speed.”
• This is the link to the magazine they mention: SportsVision Magazine

And here is the summary of my (AF) interview with Prof. Daniel Gopher (DG) on Cognitive Simulations and cognitive training:

• “AF: …Can you summarize your research findings across all these examples and fields, and how you see the field evolving?
• DG: In short, I’d summarize by saying that
• - Cognitive performance can be substantially improved with proper training. Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to live long and strong, you’ve got to do more than work out your body; you’ve got to exercise your brain, insists Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine. While we’ve heard for years that mental stimulation can stave off dementia and Alzheimer’s, Dr. Goldberg says scientists now know exactly how to keep our brains from turning to mush – by stimulating the growth of new neurons and interconnections between them that boost brain efficiency. If you don’t use your brain in new and novel ways, your brain won’t be fit to use.

As the chief scientific adviser for SharpBrains.com, Dr. Goldberg’s site offers an array of brain teasers and exercises that improve brain function. But online tests are not all you can do. Just do something different and challenging. Getting out of your middle-aged comfort zone is the difference in a high quality of life when you’re older than none at all.

Keep reading more of the Florida Today interview with Dr. Goldberg at Next Up, A Gym for the Mind.

You can also read our more detailed (and probably more precise) interview with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg on Brain Fitness and Cognitive Training.

Tom alerts us (thanks!) of a fun book review in the New York Times today, by Abigail Zuger, titled The Brain: Malleable, Capable, Vulnerable, on the book The Brain That Changes Itself (Viking, $24.95) by psychiatrist Norman Doidge. Some quotes:

• “In bookstores, the science aisle generally lies well away from the self-help section, with hard reality on one set of shelves and wishful thinking on the other. But Norman Doidge’s fascinating synopsis of the current revolution in neuroscience straddles this gap: the age-old distinction between the brain and the mind is crumbling fast as the power of positive thinking finally gains scientific credibility.”
• “So it is forgivable that Dr. Doidge, a Canadian psychiatrist and award-winning science writer, recounts the accomplishments of the “neuroplasticians,” as he calls the neuroscientists involved in these new studies, with breathless reverence. Their work is indeed mind-bending, miracle-making, reality-busting stuff, with implications, as Dr. Doidge notes, not only for individual patients with neurologic disease but for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history.”
• “Research into the malleability of the normal brain has been no less amazing. Subjects who learn to play a sequence of notes on the piano develop characteristic changes in the brain’s electric activity; when other subjects sit in front of a piano and just think about playing the same notes, the same changes occur. It is the virtual made real, a solid quantification of the power of thought.”
• “The new science of the brain may still be in its infancy, but already, as Dr. Doidge makes quite clear, the scientific minds are leaping ahead.”

Here you have some of our interviews with a few “scientific minds” that have, for years, been “leaping ahead” beyond “positive thinking” into “positive training”:

• Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg on Brain Fitness Programs and Cognitive Training. Dr. Goldberg is a neuropsychologist and clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine. He was a student and close associate of the great neuropsychologist Alexander Luria, and has written The Executive Brain and The Wisdom Paradox.
• On Cognitive Simulations for Basketball Game-Intelligence: Interview with Prof. Daniel Gopher. Dr. Gopher is Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Human Factors Engineering at Technion, Israel’s Institute of Science, and scientific advisor for IntelliGym.
• Memory training and attention deficits: interview with Professor Bradley Gibson, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at University of Notre Dame, and Director of the Perception and Attention Lab there
• On Working Memory Training and RoboMemo: Interview with Dr. Torkel Klingberg, professor at Karolinska Institute, and director of the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, part of the Stockholm Brain Institute. He is also the scientific advisor for Cogmed Working Memory Training program (RoboMemo).
• An ape can do this. Can we not? with Dr. James Zull, Professor of Biology and Biochemistry at Case Western University, and author of The Art of Changing the Brain.

And a couple of related blog posts:

• Can Thoughts and Action Change Our Brains?
• Books on neuroplasticity and memory training

Steven Edwards at Wired Blog writes a post titled Yoga Boosts Brain’s GABA Levels, saying that “Participants in the yoga group had a 27% increase in GABA levels, while those in the reading group remained unchanged. Co-authors Chris Streeter from BUSM and Domenic Ciraulo pointed out that this research shows a method of treating low GABA states. Fairly obvious — yes — but this shows a nonpharmacological method for increasing GABA levels that people can act on now, without waiting for a drug to go through FDA approval.”

Having attended last week a conference where neuropharma executives presented all their future drugs against obesity, anxiety, depression…I couldn’t agree more. The rates of serious side effects of these drugs are astounding, yet as a society we seem to prefer to rely on taking drugs when are sick rather than proactively taking charge of our health and lifestyles and do our best (which not always is enough) to protect our fitness and wellness.

The press release Steven talks about: Yoga and Elevated Brain GABA Levels [PhysOrg]. Quotes: Read the rest of this entry »

Sharon Begley writes another great article on The Upside of Aging – WSJ.com (subscription required)

• “The aging brain is subject to a dreary litany of changes. It shrinks, Swiss cheese-like holes grow, connections between neurons become sparser, blood flow and oxygen supply fall. That leads to trouble with short-term memory and rapidly switching attention, among other problems. And that’s in a healthy brain.”
• “But it’s not all doom and gloom. An emerging body of research shows that a surprising array of mental functions hold up well into old age, while others actually get better. Vocabulary improves, as do other verbal abilities such as facility with synonyms and antonyms. Older brains are packed with more so-called …”

We discussed some of these effects with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, who wrote his great book The Wisdom Paradox precisely on this point, at The Executive Brain and How our Minds Can Grow Stronger.

In our “Exercising Our Brains” Classes, we typically explain how some areas typically improve as we age, such as self-regulation, emotional functioning and Wisdom (which means moving from Problem solving to Pattern recognition), whereas other typically decline: effortful problem-solving for novel situations, processing speed, memory, attention and mental imagery. 

But the key message is that our actions influence the rate of improvement and/ or decline. Our awareness that “it’s not all doom and gloom” and that there’s much we can do is important. You may want to learn more with our Exercise Your Brain DVD.

You can also learn more on the Successful Aging of the Healthy Brain: a beautiful essay by Marian Diamond on how to keep our brains and minds active and fit throughout our lives.

 

Very fun article in the Birmingham News today on SharpBrains and brain exercises, titled Want a workout for your brain?.

The journalist explains things very well and with great humor (for the humor, you need to read the article!). Here are some quotes:

- “Think of it as a gymnasium for your mind,” SharpBrains CEO and co-founder Alvaro Fernandez says from his office in San Francisco.

- (On only doing crosswords) “That’s good, but, like your body, you don’t just exercise one part of the brain,” says Fernandez, who holds an MBA and a master’s degree in education from Stanford University. “You need constant variety, and new things, to keep your brain working hard.”

- “He sees mental gymnastics as the next mainstream adult trend and points out that therapists have long used a variety of similar exercises to help in the recovery of brain-injury patients. Athletes and airplane pilots have had access to exercises designed to improve their peripheral vision and reaction times, Fernandez says.”

- “With SharpBrains co-founder Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, a clinical professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine, Fernandez has collected what he says are the best computer-based brain workouts available, including a program to help children with attention deficits and another aimed at reducing stress management among business executives.”