Cognitive Labs

A new study looks at ages and performance on cognitive tests and finds that exercise leads to improved brain effectiveness at all ages - as measured by brainspeed and executive function....

(Urbana-Champaign News Gazette) Older folks may not be the only ones whose brain power is increased by physical fitness, a study by University of Illinois researchers working with Dutch colleagues indicates.

Previous studies, several of them done at the UI, already have provided evidence that regular exercise improves both the brain structure and function of senior citizens, including an increase in the brain's gray and white matter and better performance on cognitive tests.

"Most of the work has focused on older adults," UI kinesiology and community health Professor Charles Hillman said recently.

Now, Hillman, using data from Eco J.C. de Geus at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, is showing that at least some of the benefits may extend to younger adults as well.

De Gues, who studies behavioral genetics, collected an array of data on people age 15 to early 70s. That included information on the physical fitness and cognitive abilities of the participants.

He offered the data to Hillman for examination after the two met at a professional conference. The UI professor studies the relationship between fitness, the brain and cognition.

Hillman, UI doctoral student Matthew Pontifex and kinesiology and community health Professor Robert Motl used the data to look for links between the physical activity levels of the participants, 241 Amsterdam area residents, and the results they posted on a series of cognitive tests.

In line with previous studies, they found that older folks were faster and more accurate on the tests if they were getting regular exercise.

Meanwhile, younger folks, 15 to 39 with an average age of 25, also were faster. But they didn't show a significant improvement in accuracy.

However, Hillman said UI researchers saw improvements among younger adults in both cases in another study where the complication level of the tests was enhanced by forcing the participants to switch tasks in midstream.

"We see both speed and accuracy differences (between fit and non-fit younger participants) in that case," he said.

Hillman said the bottom line is that the studies indicate there may be a link between physical fitness and the health of the brain across the life span. Exercising throughout our lives may have a protective effect against the decline in our cognitive ability as we age, he said.

In particular, the tests were designed to challenge the "executive function" of the people taking them. That's what we use in scheduling, planning, filtering out environmental distractions and multitasking, among other things.

Driving on the highway, keeping track of the traffic around us, looking for an exit sign and sorting it out from the plethora of other signs is the kind of common challenge that taps executive function, Hillman and Pontifex said.

Hillman said the capability appears to be centered in the brain's frontal lobe, the last area to mature and the first to begin declining, which is why kids and senior citizens sometimes have problems with executive function-related tests and tasks.

But earlier studies showed that senior citizens "can return to performance at young adult levels" if they're physically active, Hillman said.

His study using the Dutch data, which appears in the current edition of journal Health Psychology, found both a general cognitive benefit and particular improvement in executive function, in addition to the effect it identified in the younger participants.

The data also included such information as gender and IQ, allowing the researchers to factor those out and isolate the impact of fitness on the cognition testing results.

Hillman wants to explore further how the impact of exercise on the brain differs in older and younger people and the mechanics behind that.

He's also interested in testing even younger participants, perhaps including a study here where kids are tested before and after they go through a directed exercise program.

"We don't know much below the age of 15," Hillman said. "We're working on that."

Labels: brain, brain_games, brainspeed, executive_function, exercise

If you know about Cognitive Labs tests, your already using the leading provider of speed-of-processing exercises, now shown to be far more effective than any other memory improvement strategy.


Short Mental Workouts May Slow Decline of Aging Minds, Study Finds

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Ten sessions of exercises to boost reasoning skills, memory and mental processing speed staved off mental decline in middle-aged and elderly people in the
first definitive study to show that honing intellectual skills can bolster the mind in the same way that physical exercise protects and strengthens the body.

The researchers also showed that the benefits of the brain exercises extended well beyond the specific skills the volunteers learned. Older adults who did

the basic exercises followed by later sessions were three times as fast as those who got only the initial sessions when it came to activities of daily living, such as reacting to a road sign, looking up a number in a telephone book or checking the ingredients on a medicine bottle -- abilities that can spell the difference between living independently and needing help.

Experts said the federally funded study is a call to action for anyone who has ever worried about developing Alzheimer's, dementia and similar disorders. Americans spend billions of dollars each year on their physical well-being, but there are no comparable efforts to keep people mentally agile and strong.

If anything, the study suggests, there is a bigger payoff to mental exercise, because the brief training sessions seemed to confer enormous benefits as many
as five years later. That would be as if someone went to the gym Monday through Friday for the first two weeks of the new year, did no exercise for five
years, and still saw significant physical benefits in 2012.

The researchers divided the volunteers into four groups, including a control group that received no training. A second group was trained in reasoning skills
-- being asked to spot the pattern in the sequence "a, c, e, g, i," for example -- every other letter of the alphabet. A third group was taught memory
skills, which involved remembering word lists and using visualizations and associations as memory aids. A fourth group was given exercises to speed up mental
processing -- being asked to identify an object flashed briefly on a computer screen while fighting off distractions.

Each of the groups being trained had 10 sessions, each lasting an hour to 75 minutes, and each session presented progressively more challenging problems.
Compared with the control group, those who got memory training did 75 percent better on memory tasks five years later, those who got the reasoning training
did 40 percent better on reasoning tasks, and those who got the speed training did 300 percent better than the control group.

Researchers noted that mental skills can sometimes compensate for physical disabilities: Knowing how to figure out directions and find a new route on a map,
for example, could allow someone to retain mobility even after their night vision deteriorates to the point where driving on certain roads becomes difficult.

The study tracked 2,802 healthy adults from diverse backgrounds who were, on average, 73 years old. Although it did not examine the effects of mental
exercise on people who had begun to show signs of Alzheimer's or other brain disorders, previous studies have pointed toward the conclusion that anyone can
benefit.

"People think education is for people who are already educated," said Michael Marsiske, one of the researchers. "This kind of training works no matter where
you are in society."

"If you think you have come to a time in your life when new learning is impossible and there are no benefits of continuing mental activity, the study shows
that for a large number of people that this is not true," added Marsiske, a clinical and health psychologist at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

The participants in the study ranged from age 65 to their early 90s, but Marsiske said the findings apply to people in their 50s or even younger. Mental
skills acquired earlier in life persist well into old age, he said.
"I don't like to play my son's video games, but I keep telling myself to challenge myself," said Marsiske, 41. "What I personally take away from the study
is, if you challenge yourself to do some new learning, something that isn't easy at the start, it can have dividends."

The study did not indicate that mental training can hold off all cognitive decline permanently. Rather, as is the case with physical exercise, strengthening
the mind appeared to slow decline.

Sherry L. Willis, the lead author of the study and a Pennsylvania State University professor of human development, said those who had the training also
reported greater confidence in their ability to solve everyday problems, and this was especially true of the group that got the reasoning training. In
performing daily functions, people who got the speed training along with a handful of follow-up sessions significantly outperformed those who did not get
such training.

The results, being published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are heartening, but Willis and Marsiske cautioned that the biggest
challenge lies ahead, in getting people to apply the findings to their lives. Whether it is encouraging people to eat right or to exercise, they said, the
hardest part is not getting them to start doing the right things but getting them to keep doing the right things.

"It's just like physical exercise -- when we are approaching the new year we will buy a pass for the gym and go fervently in January and then slack off,"
Willis said. "Mental exercise is the same way. It has to be consistent, and it has to be challenging. Just like you have to keep increasing the weights at

the gym to make it challenging, you have to do the same with mental activity."
To reap the benefits, Willis said, people need to get outside their comfort zones. For someone who likes to solve crossword puzzles, it is important to make

sure the puzzles get harder with time -- or to start playing chess. Someone who hates to play games, she said, should find something else that stretches the
mind. Mental activities do not have to involve expensive toys; everyday life can offer a variety of mental challenges. Finding a friend who can join in a new
activity can be a powerful motivator, she added.

Sally Shumaker, a professor of public health science at Wake Forest University in North Carolina who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, said it
pointed the way to a future in which mental training is made widely available.

"I can imagine a situation in which facilities are available in community centers and libraries and aging centers, where people can play some games that are
specifically designed to improve cognitive ability," she said. "People are fearful of cognitive decline, and the idea that a small and simple intervention
can have an impact is pretty compelling."


© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Labels: alzheimers, brain, brain_games, brainspeed, cognitive_labs, jama, wapo

Here's a variant on the 'tap test' used by psychologists. How many times can you press the space bar in 5 seconds, 10 seconds, or 15 seconds? From satori.org. Enjoyed at Ubisoft.

Labels: brain, brain_games, spacebar, test

So you want to improve your brain? After spending a long time listening to people knowledgeable on this topic, asking questions, and reviewing all of the most recent literature (try Google scholar to speed-read primary sources) here are some of the takeaways.


1. Drink plenty of water. 8-12 servings of water per day keep the brain and its protective tissues hydrated.

2. Exercise, improving your breathing and bloodflow. An action as simple as walking pumps blood into your upper body and head more efficiently than when you are at rest.

3. Maintain a 'Mediterranean' diet with whole grains, legumes, and olive oils


4. Use spices such as cumin, curcumin, and corriander (ingredients in curry) that have a known antioxidant effect, as well as dark berries such as blueberries.


5. Stay engaged with education, work that requires intellectual focus and concentration and socialization


6. Exercise your brain with demanding tasks or games that require a "shift" in attention and quick reaction, that can be increased in intensity, forcing your brain to adapt and rely on different neuronal arrays. Taking up programming or learning languages is an excellent way to supplement this.


7. Stimulate and unleash your right-brain by learning a new instrument, drawing, painting, or writing (blogging, even)

repeat

These simple tips, combined with regular laughter and joy, can help you stay focused and sharp for your whole life.

Labels: alzheimers, brain, brain_games, curcumin, tips