Physical fitness. Cognitive/ brain fitness. Both require novelty, variety and challenge. Professor Schlomo Breznitz, a scientific and business leader in the cognitive fitness field, explains why, eloquently, below. Perhaps “we want change” really means “we need change”. Enjoy!

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Why are everyday life challenges not sufficient to keep our brains fit?

– By Prof. Shlomo Breznitz

Often, when describing the benefits of MindFit to brain health, I am asked by people in the audience whether this software is really needed. After all, so they argue, life provides continues cognitive challenges, which should suffice for ensuring brain fitness. From the moment we wake up until we go to sleep our brains have to attend to complex stimuli, plan many activities, some of them quite complex, and carry us through whatever the day offers. These tasks should provide sufficient “brain exercise” without the need to engage in specific mental workout.

This line of argument sounds oddly familiar, since it is an exact duplication of claims made in the recent past against the need for physical exercise. One jumps into the car and from the car and perhaps even climbs a few stairs before sitting in the chair, which should be enough to burn the calories and keep fit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Neuroplasticity is defined as “the ability of the brain to rewire itself through experience”. 

We typically summarize a lot of brain research by encouraging SharpBrains readers is to seek for novelty, variety and challenge, as guidelines for “brain exercise” that will help build new connections in the brain, force one to be mindful and pay attention, improve abilities such as pattern-recognition, and in general contribute to lifelong brain health.

A friend just sent an update on her amazing experience in Namibia (the pic on the right shows the entrance to the University of Namibia) that shows how Travel and Engagement with meaningful projects can provide superb mental stimulation, or “brain exercise”. This is relevant at all ages, and we are encouraged to see organizations such as Civic Ventures and Elderhostel that offer opportunities for baby boomers and older adults who want to maintain active minds.

Try picturing in your mind, as you read this, all her different brain areas that are getting needed stimulation through her Namibia experience.

UPDATE: my friend just wrote to expand on the “be mindful” angle by saying that “it definitely requires purposeful processing of the information that you are consuming in order to make it a useful brain exercise. For example, I always try to journal or write thoughtful emails about my experience in order to try to best understand it.” Great point.

With her permission, here you have: 

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Dear Friends,

I am just returning from Namibia and am buzzing with excitement about all of the opportunities for us to make an impact there when we return with our students next Spring.

Namibia is very different than I expected. It was the last country in Africa to gain independence from colonialism, gaining independence just 20 years ago. Thus, it is much more developed than any African country that I have visited, with relatively good infrastructure and no exis ting debt. That said, the legacies of apartheid can still be felt in today’s society, and the people are very clearly dealing constantly with issues of race and identity. One of the most interesting experiences that I had was attending a “braai” (the Namibian version of a barbecue which basically consists of Read the rest of this entry »

It is always good to stimulate our minds and to learn a bit about how our brains work. Here you have a selection of the 50 Brain Teasers that people have enjoyed the most in our blog and speaking engagements.

Fun experiments on how our brains work

1. Do you think you know the colors?: try the Stroop Test.

2. Can you count?: Basketball attention experiment (Interactive).

3. Who is this?: A very important little guy (Interactive).

4. How is this possible?.

5. Take the Senses Challenge (Interactive).

6. Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?.

Attention

7. How are your divided attention skills? check out “Inside and Outside” (Interactive, from MindFit).

8. Can you walk and chew gum at the same time? try “Two in One” (Interactive, from MindFit)

9. Count the Fs in this sentence.

10. What do you see? can you alternate between 2 views?.

Memory

11. Easy one…draw the face of a penny, please. Read the rest of this entry »

Bill Gates delivered a very inspiring commencement speech in Harvard last week. I recommend reading the full Remarks of Bill Gates and reflecting on his core message, which may be summarized in its last sentence:

• “And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.”

A noteworthy aspect of the speech was the display of what neuropsychologists call Executive Functions, which are mostly located in our Frontal Lobes-the most recent part of our brains in evolutionary terms, and that enable us to learn and adapt to new environments. What makes a “sharp brain”. You can read more about this in our post Executive Functions and MacArthur “Genius Grants”.

See here Bill Gates’ advice on how to find solutions in complex environments-and how he applies a learned pattern to guide his actions in the field of AIDS prevention:

• “Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it’s something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.”
• “The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.”
• “Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.”
• “The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.”

Certainly, good advice for us too to refine our Brain Fitness efforts. Here you have a relevant fragment of my (AF)recent interview with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg (EG):

AF: Please tell us more about what the Frontal Lobes are

EG: We researchers typically call them the Executive Brain. The prefrontal cortex is young by evolutionary terms, and is the brain area critical to adapt to new situations, plan for the future, and self-regulate our actions in order to achieve long-term objectives. We could say that that part of the brain, right behind our forehead, acts as the conductor of an orchestra, directing and integrating the work of other parts of the brain.

I provide a good example in The Executive Brain book, where I explain how I was able to organize my escape from Russia into the US.

Significantly, the pathways that connect the frontal lobes with the rest of the brain are slow to mature, reaching full operational state between ages 18 and 30, or maybe even later. And, given that they are not as hard-wired as other parts of the brain, they are typically the first areas to decline.

Well, I’d say Mr. Gates has pretty mature and solid pathways!

Here is new brain teaser from puzzle master Wes Carroll. He found this one in the Mensa publication Number Puzzles for Math Geniuses by Harold Gale.

The Fork in the Road

Question:
Start at the center number and collect another four numbers by following the paths shown (and not going backwards). Add the five numbers together. What is the lowest number you can score?

This puzzle works your executive functions in your frontal lobes by using your planning skills, hypothesis testing, and logic.

Click here to get the Answer.

I was sent these links to a free online crossword puzzle game and sudoko. While we often talk about the excellent computer-based brain fitness programs available, puzzles can still be good mental exercise … they are just not a complete workout for your whole brain.

Word games like crossword puzzles and SCRABBLE® exercise your lexical recall (memory for words that name things), attention, memory, and pattern recognition. They can help maintain your vocabulary and avoid the frustrating tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon that all of us experience from time to time. Sudoko is not a mathematics game in that you don’t actually manipulate the numbers as mathematical entities, but it is a pattern recognition game using symbols (numbers). A very legitimate reason to play casual games is that they can be social and fun – which is good for reducing stress.

The drawbacks to puzzles and games is that they are hard to calibrate to ensure increasing challenge, and they generally only exercise a limited number of brain functions.

So by all means, do puzzles if you enjoy them! But be sure to push yourself to keep finding harder ones that fall just short of frustrating you. Also, just as you cross train your voluntary muscles, be sure to cross train your mental muscles by balancing your workout with other types of mental work (motor coordination, auditory, working memory, planning, etc.). The computerized programs make it easier for you in the sense that they are individually calibrated for you to employ novelty, variety, challenge, and practice to exercise your brain more thoroughly in each session.

Further reading on language production, comprehension, and goofs:

• Language Production and Perception
• Wernicke’s Area: an area of the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet that is used in understanding and comprehending spoken language
• Broca’s Area: an area in the frontal lobe of the brain that is involved in language processing, speech production and comprehension
• The Language Production Group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

There has been an interesting discussion about the issues related to the aging of the legal profession. Stephanie introduced us to the article “the Graying Bar: let’s not forget the ethics” by David Giacalone.

In short: statistics about the increasing ratio of lawyers over 70 in active practice, on the one hand, and the general incidence of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, on the other, lead David to point out an increasing likelihood that some lawyers may be practicing in less than ideal conditions for their clients, beyond a reasonable “brain age”. The question then becomes: who and how can solve this problem, which is only going to grow given demographic trends?.

We are not legal experts, but would like to inform the debate by offering 10 considerations on healthy aging and job performance from a neuropsychological point of view, that apply to all occupations:

1- We should talk more about change than about decline, as Sharon Begley wrote recently in her great article on The Upside of Aging – WSJ.com (subscription required).

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.

2- Some skills improve as we age: 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). As a lawyer accumulates more cases under his/ her belt, he or she develops an automatic “intuition” for solutions and strategies. As long as the enviroment doesn’t change too rapidly, this growing wisdom is very valuable.

3- …whereas, yes, others typically decline: Read the rest of this entry »

First, here’s the new edition of Encephalon hosted by MindHacks.

Second, you can’t miss this short clip: Colbert asks Steven Pinker, “How does the brain work…in 5 words or less”. Think what you’d answer, while the video uploads…

As brought to our attention by Edge.

 

In case you can’t wait, in reverse order: (patterns in fire cells brain)

 

Your frontal lobes are home to your executive functions, including pattern recognition. Here’s a puzzle to challenge your ability to uncover a pattern.

In this puzzle, three numbers: 16, 14, and 38, need to be assigned to one of the rows of numbers below. To which row should each number be assigned – A, B, or C?

Why do we care about pattern recognition skills? Well, if you’re an athlete, then you want to constantly improve your ability to see spatial patterns on the court or field quickly so you can act on them – by passing to open space or attacking the goal at the right moment. Stock traders look for patterns in the market behavior to guide them on buying and selling decisions. Chess masters are experts at recognizing complicated moves. Reading is also pattern recognition.
 

“Recognition skills are required at all levels of reading from small patterns (such as a letter) to larger patterns (such as an author’s style). Similarly, strategic skills are needed to decode words as well as to make meaning from text.” 

So, you use pattern recognition all the time whether you know it or not. But remember, using a skill is great, but you have to keep exercising it a little bit harder each time to develop it further.

Have you solved the puzzle yet? If not, here’s a hint:
It’s not a mathematical problem. The numerical values are irrelevant.

Keep reading for the answer…
Read the rest of this entry »

Happy 2007 to everyone!

We have just formulated our New Year Resolution: make 2007 the year when brain plasticity and Brain Fitness became mainstream concepts.

How do we start? well, let’s announce the launch of the Carnival of Brain Fitness (a Blog Carnival is basically the vehicle that blogs use to share posts around specific topics).

Goal: to facilitate a dialogue about this emerging field across multiple perspectives, from scientists and health professionals, to education and training ones, to basically everyone who has conducted an experiment on his on her brain and mind, and has news to report.

Context: The scientific foundations lie in neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, cognitive training and stress management. Medical and health applications range from stroke and TBI rehabilitation to ADD/ADHD and early Alzheimer’s to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and cognitive therapy. Educational and training applications go from helping kids improve reading abilities to helping manage stress and anxiety – including work with the “mental game” in sports and high-demand activities pr professions. Each of us may also have experiences to report, where we saw first hand, no matter our age, our innate ability to refine and transform ourselves (and our brains).

Mechanics: If you’d like to contribute, Read the rest of this entry »