I just read a very interesting article in Newsweek: Executive Functions: The School Skill That May Matter More Than IQ. A few quotes:
- "But recent advances in psychology and brain science are now suggesting that a child's ability to inhibit distracting thoughts and stay focused may be a fundamental cognitive skill, one that plays a big part in academic success from 
preschool on. Indeed, this and closely related skills may be more important than traditional IQ in predicting a child's school performance."
- "EF (executive functions) comprises not only effortful control and cognitive focus but also working memory and mental flexibility—the ability to adjust to change, to think outside the box."
- "When the teacher holds up a circle they clap, with a triangle they hop, and so forth. The kids are taught to talk themselves through the mental exercise: "OK, now clap." "Twirl now." This has been shown to flex and enhance the brain's ability to switch gears, to suppress one piece of information and sub in a new one. It takes discipline; it's the elementary school equivalent of saying "I really need stop thinking about next week's vacation and focus on this report."
The main points: executive functions are crucial for success in life, AND they can be trained. I couldn't agree more with the article in that cognitive training should be part of the education curriculum and receive more research dollars to determine exactly how to best do so.
I read another very interesting article on Alzheimer's Disease. Which may look like a completely different topic than the one above...but please bear with me. Continue Reading »
What a beautiful display of creativity:
Physical Fitness 'Godfather' Jack LaLanne Turns to Brain Fitness, Becoming Ambassador for Dakim's [m] Power System
- Dakim, Inc., announced today that 93-year-young Jack LaLanne, the world's most iconic figure in health and fitness, has signed on as a "brain fitness motivational coach" on behalf of the company's [m]Power Cognitive Fitness System, joining the company's efforts to help seniors fight against dementia.
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We just received these two very thought-provoking essays on Alzheimer's Disease and brain health, as part of a writing workshop, led by Susan Hill in Lakeland, Florida, with a group of grade 9-11 homeschoolers.
Without further ado, here you are both Essays:
Essay A. Preventing Alzheimer’s at Work
-- By Josh H
5,000,000: that is the number of people in the United States alone who are affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Research has shown that those who held jobs such as sanitation workers or trash collectors in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are more at risk for Alzheimer’s disease than people who held jobs such as doctors or scientists at the same age. If everyone knew this, the world would benefit, and it could impact the lives of everyone.
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Last year, Jeffrey Gonce, a Psychology teacher at Red Land High School (West Shore School District, PA) asked his students to "complete a project describing a recent brain (or genetic) study that affects behavior." The students could opt to post their articles online, and Jeffrey was kind enough to send us a link to read the results. We enjoyed reading them all, and published in our blog this beautiful essay, titled "Tis better to give than receive", written by Alexandra, which was subsequently included in a number of neuroscience an psychology blogs. Earlier this year we highlighted this piece on Musical training as mental exercise for cognitive performance, written by Megan.
This quarter, Jeffrey also sent us his students' essays, and we are going to recognize and publish this great essay by high school student Kristin H.
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Alzheimer's Disease
-- By Kristin H.
Alzheimer's is a disease which causes people, generally of an older age, to lose memory and forget how to accomplish simple tasks. Dementia is the disease which Alzheimer's is a part and about four million Americans were diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1999, a number which is expected to grow (Altman 8-9). Dementia is an unspecific brain disease commonly associated with memory loss and another serious brain dysfunction. Dementia is an incurable disease ("Dementia"). A new drug treatment that replaces the enzyme missing in an Alzheimer's brain may be able to cure Alzheimer's disease in it's late stages (Coghlan).
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Several recent news (including video of our recent panel discussion):
1) Study Finds Improved Cognitive Health among Older Americans (Journal of the Alzheimer's Association)
- "Societal investment in building and maintaining cognitive reserve through formal education in childhood and continued cognitive stimulation during work and leisure in adulthood may help limit the burden of dementia among the growing number of older adults worldwide".
- "Cognitive impairment dropped from 12.2 percent in 1993 to 8.7 percent in 2002 among people 70 and older."
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Cognitive training (the basis for what we call "brain fitness" these days) has a wide array of applications. The most recent
one, which is capturing public's imagination, monopolizing media coverage, and creating certain confusion, is Healthy Brain Aging. We are fortunate to have Dr. Joshua Steinerman, one of our new Expert Contributors, offer today his great voice to this conversation. Enjoy!
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Minding the Aging Brain
-- By Joshua R. Steinerman, M.D.
Scientists, philosophers, artists, and experts from all fields of human endeavor lament: it ain’t easy getting older. It? Do they refer to frailty and disability? To bodily disease? To life at its essence?
It’s all in your head
The mind is not set in stone, but it is encased by bone. It’s really all about the brain, the hyphen in the mind-body conundrum. That squishy gray neuronal jungle is the interface between internal life and environmental sensations and stimulation. As expected, the brain shows signs of aging just as a wrinkled brow, a stooped posture, or an arthritic finger might. The most common brain changes observed in aging and in age-associated neuropsychiatric disease include:
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Roundup of several insightful articles and recent research:
Fish Oil May Help Prevent Alzheimer's (Washington Post)
- "The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil might play an important role in preventing Alzheimer's disease, according to a research team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)."
- "Publishing in the Dec. 26 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, the scientists demonstrated that the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) increases the production of LR11, a protein that is found at reduced levels in Alzheimer's patients. LR11 is known to destroy the protein that forms the plaques associated with the disease, the researchers explained."
- "Alzheimer's is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease that causes memory loss, dementia, personality change and ultimately death. The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 5.1 million Americans are currently afflicted with the disease. The association predicts that may increase to between 11 million and 16 million people by 2050."
'Finding Alzheimer’s Before a Mind Fails' (New York Times)
- "Ms. Kerley is part of an ambitious new scientific effort to find ways to detect Alzheimer’s disease at the earliest possible moment. Although the disease may seem like a calamity that strikes suddenly in old age, scientists now think it begins long before the mind fails."
- "Many scientists believe the best hope of progress, maybe the only hope, lies in Continue Reading »
Quick: say the color in which each word in this graphic is displayed (don't just read the word!):
Here you have a round-up of some great recent articles on memory, aging, and cognitive abilities such as self-control:
1) How to Boost Your Willpower (New York Times).
- "The video watchers were later given a concentration test in which they were asked to identify the color in which words were displayed. (Note: now you see why we started with that brain exercise...) The word “red,” for instance, might appear in blue ink. The video watchers who had stifled their responses did the worst on the test, suggesting that their self-control had already been depleted by the film challenge."
- "Finally, some research suggests that people struggling with self-control should start small. A few studies show that people who were instructed for two weeks to make small changes like improving their posture or brushing their teeth with their opposite hand improved their scores on laboratory tests of self-control. The data aren’t conclusive, but they do suggest that the quest for self-improvement should start small. A vow to stop swearing, to make the bed every day or to give up just one food may be a way to strengthen your self-control, giving you more willpower reserves for bigger challenges later."
Comment: learning, building abilities, are processes that require practice and growing levels of difficulty. Like training our muscles in the gym. So the advice to start small and progressively do more makes sense. Many times the enemy of learning is the stress and anxiety we provoke by trying to do too many things at the same time...
2) Jogging Your Memory (Newsweek) Thanks Chris for alerting us!
- "No one should expect miracles soon, if at all. But the deeper scientists peer into the workings of memory, the better they understand Continue Reading »
Stephanie West Allen kindly alerted us of her impressive new initiative and blog, in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz, titled Brains On Purpose™. They have partnered to bring a series of seminars on neuroscience and conflict resolution: Portland, Oregon, in November 2007, and San Francisco Bay Area in January 2008-so far. Dr. Schwartz has previously participated in a similar and fruitful initiative on The Neuroscience of Leadership with David Rock. We wish them best luck in this exciting initiative.
Stephanie writes a great blog post on "What are you feeling?" "What am I feeling?" These questions are tools for brain taming, explaining how "A flurry of articles appeared this week (such as this one in Scientific American: "Name that feeling: You'll feel better") about the neuroscience research showing that labeling your feelings can quiet your brain and increase impulse control"
adding that...
"In our recent article "Lead Your Brain Instead Of Letting It Lead You," we talk about the practice of making mental notes (first described by Jeff in his book Dear Patrick: Life is Tough - Here's Some Good Advice). Developing your skill in making mental notes can bring relief when high conflict occurs." and "The more skilled you get at labeling, the more quickly — no matter the situation — you can return to equanimity and composure."
Check her post to learn more about the labeling technique. Developing mental notes can be a very powerful way to self-regulate behavior, not too different from cognitive therapy and emotional self-regulation techniques.
Exciting to see more scientists and practitioners bringing research into practice! As we have mentioned, Brain Fitness is something that applies to different ages and different purposes, and this is a great example for lawyers.
In study, Bilingual brains stay sharp longer
We have seen a number of studies on why and how speaking more than one language may help build a Cognitive Reserve (interview with Yaakov Stern) that protects us against cognitive decline. This article does a good job at explaining what may be going on (bold added by me):
- Bialystok, who began studying bilingual kids decades ago, believes one key to their special brainpower lies in the way they must constantly decide which language to use and which to suppress.
- For people who use two languages daily, "every time you want to speak one language, the other language is activated" in the brain as well, she said. "That means you need a mechanism so that you're only drawing from the right pool (of words). It's going be a mechanism that works extremely fast ... while you're producing sentences. It's way below your radar for detecting what's happening."
- So bilinguals get far more practice than monolinguals in using the part of the brain that focuses our attention, helping us sort through conflicting information and ignore distractions. Using two languages seems to bolster rapid decision-making, multi-tasking and perhaps memory.
In short: learning and speaking a foreign language provides constant brain exercise to the frontal lobes (see basic brain anatomy), the area of the brain right behind your forehead that focuses our attention, helps us ignore distractions, and make decisions.
Have a nice Easter time.
