The Online Brain Games Blog

One of the 4 pillars of brain health is mental exercise. Many people wonder if there is actually any research demonstrating that mental exercise actually has any benefit with respect to brain health and fitness and preventing age related mental decline such as dementia.

Well, lets take a look some of the research on the subject.

Dementia literally means “deprived of mind”. Dementia symptoms include a general decline in ones mental capabilities. Affected areas may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving.

Alzheimer’s disease is considered the most common form of dementia. Research indicates that Alzheimer’s disease is a result plaques and tangles that have formed in the brain.

Alzheimer’s symptoms include short-term memory loss, confusion, irritability and aggression, mood swings, language breakdown, and eventually long-term memory loss. Generally, it is diagnosed in people over 65 years of age.

The number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is reported to be 35 million-plus worldwide as of Sept. 2009. This number is expected to reach approximately 107 million people by the year 2050.

Brain exercises and activities that keep the brain active may delay memory declines and other dementia symptoms according to several recent studies. In fact, one recent study found that individuals with high mental stimulation actually had a 46 percent decreased risk of dementia. This effect was even maintained later in life, as long as the individuals continued to engage in brain exercises and other forms of mentally stimulating activities.

Other aspects of a person’s lifestyle such as stress management, physical exercise and a balanced diet (the other 3 pillars ) have also been linked to fewer dementia and Alzheimer’s symptoms.

One study, called the Nun study, is a favorite of mine. The nuns in the study had donated their brains to research prior to their deaths. They were quite old but still mentally sharp all the way up until their deaths. The research on their brains showed evidence of full blown Alzheimer’s disease, yet they had shown no signs of alzheimer’s symptoms while alive!

While watching the video, I counted 3 of the 4 pillars of brain health being displayed in the nuns lives. Can you figure out which 3?

Sources:

livescience.com-delay_dementia

livescience.com-brain-exercises

wikipedia-Dementia

wikipedia-Alzheimers

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A recent study was performed on adults 60 years of age and older in an effort to see if age related declines in brain function could be slowed or even reversed via social service work. The participants were entered in an Experience Corps (EC) program in three elementary schools.  The volunteers were trained and spent 15 h/wk for 6 months during the academic year to assist teachers in kindergarten through third grade to promote children’s literacy and academic achievement. The study participants, along with a control group, were studied via fMRI scans and cognitive testing at the beginning and end of the 6 month period. The results of the study suggest that;

socially engaging cognitive activities in midlife and early late-life may reduce risk for AD (Alzheimer’s Disease) and dementia decades later.

Many studies have shown that being both mentally and socially engaged later in life is important to maintaining our brain fitness. What’s wonderful about the Experience Corps program is that it combines the two.

According the the Experience Corps website:

“Giving back to your community may slow the aging process in ways that lead to a higher quality of life in older adults.”

Experience Corps is a program that engages people over 55 to help meet the needs of their community, while helping themselves. They program is currently offered in 22 cities across the United States. It’s a triple win in that it helps the students, the schools and the older adults who participate.

If you or someone else you know is over 55 years of age and looking for a way to give back to the community, why not check out Experience Corps.

Resources:

Evidence for Neurocognitive Plasticity in At-Risk Older Adults

Experiencecorps.org

Clues To Maintaining Brain Fitness Into Old Age

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Scientists used to believe that the brain stopped making new brain cells past a certain age. But that believe changed in the late 1990’s as a result of several studies which were performed on mice at the Salk Institute.

After conducting maze tests, neuroscientist Fred H. Gage and his colleagues examined brain samples collected from mice. What they found challenged long standing believes held about neurogenesis, or the creation of new neurons. To their astonishment, they discovered that the mice were creating new neurons. Their brains were regenerating themselves.

All of the mice showed evidence of neurogenesis but the brains of the athletic mice showed even more.

These mice, the ones that scampered on running wheels, were producing two to three times as many new neurons as the mice that didn’t exercise.

The difference between the mice who performed well on the maze tests and those that floundered was exercise.

That’s great for the mice, but what about humans?

To find out if neurogensis occurred in adult humans, Gage and his colleagues obtained brain tissue from deceased cancer patients who had donated their bodies to research. While still living, these people were injected with the same type of compound used on Gage’s mice to detect new neuron growth. When Gage dyed their brain samples, he saw new neurons. Like in the mice study, they found evidence of neurogenesis – the growth of new brain cells.

From the mice study, it appears that those who exercise produce even more new brain cells than those who don’t. Several studies on humans seem to suggest the same thing.

Studies performed at both the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and Columbia University in New York City have shown that exercise benefits brain function. The test subjects were given aerobic exercises such as walking for at least one hour three times a week. After 6 months they showed significant improvements in memory as measured by a word-recall test. Using fMRI scans they also showed increases in blood flow to the hippocampus (part of the brain associated with memory and learning). Scientists suspect that the blood pumping into that part of the brain was helping to produce fresh neurons.

Dr. Patricia A. Boyle and her colleagues of Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago found that the greater a person’s muscle strength, the lower their likelihood of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The same was true for the loss of mental function that often precedes full-blown Alzheimer’s.

Neuroscientist Gage, by the way, exercises just about every day, as do most colleagues in his field. As Scott Small a neurologist at Columbia explains,

I constantly get asked at cocktail parties what someone can do to protect their mental functioning. I tell them, ‘Put down that glass and go for a run.

So if you want to grow some new brain cells and improve your brain function, go get some exercise!

Reference:

Lobes of Steel

More Muscle Strength equals Less Risk of Alzheimers

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I’ve written several posts in the past which connected physical exercise to brain fitness.  Well I just came across a news article today on yahoo which further highlighted this connection.

The article reported the results of a study performed by Dr. Patricia A. Boyle and her colleagues of Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago. They found that the greater a person’s muscle strength, the lower their likelihood of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The same was true for the loss of mental function that often precedes full-blown Alzheimer’s.

The researchers initially measured the strength of nine muscle groups in the arms and legs of 970 dementia-free men and women 54 to 100 years old (their average age was around 80). During a four year follow-up, 138 people in the study developed Alzheimer’s. These individuals were older and had worse mental function than the rest of the study participants. They also were weaker. They found that muscle strength had a strong influence on the risk of the disease. People who ranked in the top 10 percent for muscle strength were 61 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than the weakest 10 percent. Stronger people also showed a slower decline in their mental abilities over time.

“These findings support the link between physical health and cognition in aging and the importance of maintaining good physical function and strength,” Boyle told Reuters.

“Good physical health is important for good brain function.”

Source:

More muscle power means lower Alzheimer’s risk

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