Back in July, I wrote a post entitled 10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn. Those tips apply to students of any age, including adults, for ideally adults are still learners. Why is adult learning relevant in a brain-focused blog, you may wonder:

The short of it…

As we age, our brain:

• still forms new brain cells
• can change its structure & function
• finds positive stress can be beneficial; negative stress can be detrimental
• can thrive on novel challenges
• needs to be exercised, just like our bodies

The long of it…

Adults may have a tendency to get set in their ways – I’ve been doing it this way for a long time and it works, so why change? Turns out, though, that change can be a way to keep aging brains healthy. At the April Learning & the Brain conference, the theme of which was neuroplasticity, I attended several sessions on adult learning. Here’s what the experts are saying.

Read the rest of this entry »

First, some of my favorite blog carnivals we contributed to this week: Grand Rounds, HR, Education, Law, Carnival of the Green.

2 very interesting news pieces (the second one, including fun brain teasers):

1) With a fresh grasp on – and label for – an academic block, some slow achievers are eager to return to school (Boston Globe)

Quote: “Turns out Ellie has a problem with working memory, a term used to describe the ability to retain information from the top of a page to the bottom. Working memory comes under the umbrella of executive function, a thinking skill that refers to the tasks executives tend to excel at, such as prioritizing, organizing, and mentally shifting information around. It’s a skill that develops progressively, starting in the elementary years and continuing into adulthood…If you’ve never heard of executive function, brace yourself. It’s bursting onto the educational scene.”

Comment: Great article. We covered this in detail in an essay last year: Cognitive Neuroscience and ADD/ADHD Today.

2) Want a job at Google? Try these brainteasers first (CNN)

Quote: “Seemingly random questions like these have become commonplace in Silicon Valley and other tech outposts, where companies aren’t as interested in the correct answer to a tough question as they are in how a prospective employee might try to solve it. Since businesses today have to be able to react quickly to shifting market dynamics, they want more than engineers with high IQs and good college transcripts. They want people who can think on their feet.”

Comment: What are those companies (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) after? Employees with good Executive Functions. You can try some of the fun teasers in the article. For more context on what those are 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.

 

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 »

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Brain Fitness Blog Carnival. The timing couldn’t be better — you have probably seen the featured CBS News/TIME Series on Brain Neuroplasticity.

Thanks to the over 40 people who submitted posts. We have had to select the posts we enjoyed the most to help facilitate an engaging and informed conversation.

Learning is physical. Our experience literally shapes our brains. And vice versa. The media seems to be focusing mostly on brain fitness for seniors, but its implications go beyond that, as you will see in this post by Caroline: What is Brain Fitness?, and the articles in this carnival.

Science-based understanding is evolving from “Use it or Lose It” to “Use It and Improve It”. As Fast Company’s Alan Deutschman provocatively puts it in his last book, Change or Die. We couldn’t agree more with his summary recommendation: “Relate. Repeat. Reframe.” Alan presents a blog article announcing his book (here is his original article). Read the rest of this entry »

CBS News and TIME magazine are teaming up for a five-part series on the “The Complicated, Mesmerizing World of the Brain“. The first report by CBS Evening News contributor Dr. Sanjay Gupta focused on neuroplasticity – “the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by creating new brain cells through mental and physical exercises.”

Dr. Gupta interviewed Arthur Kramer, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois who studied the effects of exercise, diet, and social and mental stimulation on older adults. According to Kramer, the break through anti-aging treatment is exercise.

We found in our study that walking will increase the volume of the brain, increase the efficiency of the brain and increase improvements in the number of cognitive functions such as memory and attention.

Kramer and McAuley’s research showed that aerobic exercise led to increased brain volume in the prefrontal and temporal cortices – areas that show considerable age-related deterioration.

To go beyond physical exercise and look at mental exercise, Dr. Gupta also interviewed Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. of UCSF and Posit Science. Merzenich said, “The brain is actually revising itself. It is actually plastically changing itself as you develop new skills and abilities, as you learn new things.” Merzenich has been studying neuroplasticity and how the brain changes with experience since the 1980s.

To Catch the Series, Here’s the Schedule:
Read the rest of this entry »

A few heads up:

- Chris posted a new edition of Encephalon at Mixing Memory.

- We will be hosting the new edition of this neuroscience blog carnival on January 29th. Submissions can be sent to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com.

- Neurophilosopher has posted a couple great posts, one on how Bilingualism may delay onset of dementia (via the Cognitive Reserve theory), the other highlighting some of his best posts for his new readers (congratulations!), with A warm welcome to all my new readers

- Bora announced the release of a great ebook and book at The Science Blogging Anthology – the Great Unveiling!

- And Chris has been writing a series on the PreFrontal Cortex, a bit technical but interesting to read The Anterior Frontier: Prefrontal Cortex

Enjoy

We are spending more time talking to journalists these days. A frequent question we receive is, “OK, which computer-based programs do you consider to be Brain Fitness Programs, not just “games” for pure fun”?.

Our answer: the rate of development of new programs by neuroscientists worldwide is really increasing, and there are already a few out there that combine good underlying science with embedded quality assessments and user-friendly guidelines and exercises from a fitness and prevention (vs. medical “prescription”) perspective. Some of these are:

Cogmed Working Memory Training program (RoboMemo), helps children with attention deficits to overcome the working memory gap. and is distributed exclusively through selected clinical providers.

Freeze-Framer is a biometric-based system that helps people of all ages and occupations (from students to nurses and traders) get into The Zone of optimal learning and performance by managing the negative effects of stress and anxiety. Our partner is the Institute of HeartMath.

IntelliGym  provides a mental workout to improve core basketball abilities, such as coordination, attention control, peripheral vision, and perception.  Yes, this can be trained. It is basketball specific, so we don’t recommend it for other sports. Our partner is ACE.

MindFit helps train 14 different cognitive functions that are important for healthy aging. Even if the activities are helpful for people of all ages (I personally use it as my “brain gym” during flights, being in my mid-30s), the look & feel is more appropriate for people over 50, so we recommend it mainly for that group. Our partner is Vigorous Mind.

Posit Science offers an intensive program for training core auditory processing abilities. Auditory processing is one of the areas that typically decline with age, so this would be a great starting point for anyone, usually above 60 given the marketing we see in their website, who may be experiencing problems with his/ her hearing and understanding capabilities. We do not offer this program through our website, but certainly respect their scientists and research.

We are constantly looking for new ones, so keep tuned.

 

Here is question six of 25 from Brain Fitness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Questions. To download the complete version, please click here.

Question:
How do I start a brain fitness program?

Key Points:

• Any activity that requires you to use your brain in new, challenging ways helps your brain.
• Recreational activities like bridge, chess, puzzles, sudoku, various classes, reading, and sports are all better than passively watching television.
• Add a computerized brain fitness program to get a complete mental workout on a regular basis.

Answer: Read the rest of this entry »