Innovative training software could turn back the clock on aging brains.
Baby boomers regularly head to the gym to combat middle-age spread. Now evidence is piling up that exercising the aging brain is just as important.
A new cognitive training program designed to rejuvenate the brain's natural plasticity could slow down mental decline by as much as ten years. The program and others like it may be an accessible way for older people to take advantage of recent advances in the neuroscience of aging.
The connections in the brain are plastic, meaning that when we learn something, the properties of our synapses and other neural circuits change, improving their processing speed and the fidelity of the information being encoded.
As we age, though, this natural learning process starts to deteriorate. "Sensory information gets encoded less accurately, and the brain has to look and listen longer before it can make a decision about what it's seeing or hearing," says Michael Merzenich, a neuroscientist at the University of California at San Francisco, who's been studying the neural basis of learning for 30 years.
This slowing is at the root of some age-related memory loss. For example, older persons are significantly worse than college-age ones at remembering two musical tones presented in quick succession. But if the stimuli are slowed down by just a few hundred milliseconds, giving the subject more time to process the information, the difference in performance disappears.
Recent research has shown that reading the newspaper or doing crossword puzzles can help to keep older people mentally fit. According to Merzenich, a more focused and rigorous approach will have a considerably larger impact. In 2003, he founded the for-profit Posit Science in San Francisco to develop a software program based on the idea that individuals can retrain their brains to think faster, similar to the way, say, a retired violinist can recover his or her skill at the instrument with more intense practice.
During the training sessions that Merzenich and collaborators have conducted subjects answer questions about recorded narratives. The narratives are first played slowly, then progressively faster. The program adapts to the individual's skill level, so that the listening task is always difficult but not insurmountably so.
Experts say this level of challenge is a crucial component for triggering the brain's plasticity, which underlies improvements in processing speed. "This is what good rehab therapists do, but most people don't have the money to do that," says Michael Kilgard, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Dallas, who works with Posit. "We think it's possible to deliver this with a computer, rather than one-on-one."
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Guest (William McMillan)
If the training of the brain to absorb at ever increasing speed (based on review questions and incremental speed increases)is integrated with the content of current newspapers, or books that you would have to read anyway, then the process would not "require" time, but would actually "save" time.
Guest (Raymond Haney)
Guest (Owen N. Martinez)
Am 77 and still in good mental shape, with a few mental lapses, sometimes.
I like to read a lot, particularly action and historic novels. Also to prepare technical reports about economic and urban development problems.
Your article about "Excercising the Brain" was very good and an eye opener, for us seniors. Keep up the good work!
Guest (Andy)
So, training and practise result in performance improvements. Big surprise.
Wheres the control group? Try getting similar people to remember songs or peotry and see if their memory improves.
Guest (Michael Rodemer)
Guest (Peggy)
The reporter does research a disservice by writing about a subject this early in a study. The sample size of 95 is too small. Also, everyone in the sample lives in nursing homes, even though some are at the relatively young age of 63. This indicates that those in the sample have other medical issues than just age. All of us reading the article probably know some lively 80-plus-year-olds living full, vibrant lives on their own. Is memory loss related to age or lifestyle as one ages? How ironic that the neurologists leading the study are close to the lower edge of the sample age limit.
Guest (Peggy)
The reporter does research a disservice by writing about a subject this early in a study. The sample size of 95 is too small. Also, everyone in the sample lives in nursing homes, even though some are at the relatively young age of 63. This indicates that those in the sample have other medical issues than just age. All of us reading the article probably know some lively 80-plus-year-olds living full, vibrant lives on their own. Is memory loss related to age or lifestyle as one ages? How ironic that the neurologists leading the study are close to the lower edge of the sample age limit.
Guest (Andy)
So, training and practise result in performance improvements. Big surprise.
Wheres the control group? Try getting similar people to remember songs or peotry and see if their memory improves.
Guest (William McMillan)
If the training of the brain to absorb at ever increasing speed (based on review questions and incremental speed increases)is integrated with the content of current newspapers, or books that you would have to read anyway, then the process would not "require" time, but would actually "save" time.
Guest (Raymond Haney)
Guest (Owen N. Martinez)
Am 77 and still in good mental shape, with a few mental lapses, sometimes.
I like to read a lot, particularly action and historic novels. Also to prepare technical reports about economic and urban development problems.
Your article about "Excercising the Brain" was very good and an eye opener, for us seniors. Keep up the good work!
Guest (Michael Rodemer)
The article has the very basics..
It could have been more informative. Methods and statistics could have been mentioned more elaborativly.
I am 70 years old. Got my PhD online last year. Enjoyed every minute of the effort. I have now become addidicted to SODUKU. I can't pass one up. But like every thing else if you don't use it you loose it. Hope to learn more of this exercise for the brain program.
In my opinion, one of the best forms of exercise for the brain is learning a language. I particularly like the simple but effective and fun method for quickly picking up a practical vocabulary that Transparent Languages have developed (see www.beforeyouknowit.com).
So what's new? The Romans used to say 'mens sana in corpore sano'. It appears to me that mankind suffers form chronic 'history amnesia' and thus keeps 'reinventing the wheel'.
nihil novum sub sole...
Nevertheless, thank you for reminding!
CEGracias
www.bizino.com from Charles G. Nutter CEO of Silacon Valley Corporation, a high tech think tank in MPLS MN, is the brain exerciser most excellent. It combines investing, online gaming and rapid puzzle solving to boost brain, pocketbook and hedge on gambling by giving away a share of stock with each play. Cash jackpots are bigger if puzzles get solved. The usual jackpots apply with similar frequency beyond the free stock. The brain must work a little bit to get richer. www.bizino.com
We have also had a lot of success with HeadStrong Cognitive. The HeadStrong brain exercises have been developed to improve your cognitive fitness- brain function- in the areas of mental speed, attention and concentration, language, memory, and problem solving.
www.headstrongcognitive.com
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This document is part of the “How-To Guide for Most Common Measurements” centralized resource portal. This tutorial provides a detailed guide for measurement and device considerations to take temperature measurements using thermocouples. Get an introduction to thermocouples, which are inexpensive sensing devices widely used with PC-based data acquisition systems. Also review some specific thermocouple examples and learn how thermocouples work and ways to integrate them into a data acquisition measurement system.
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Guest (Andy)
No surprise there
So, training and practise result in performance improvements. Big surprise.
Wheres the control group? Try getting similar people to remember songs or peotry and see if their memory improves.
Reply
Guest (Anon)
Might be the cats meow and make geniuses
out of our aging population, but at a price of $495 for the *individual* version looks like the marketing people at that company arent taking their own medicine. Oh well, looks like yet another cool technology fated to oblivion as far as market success.
Reply
Guest (anon)
ha ha ha pneumonics
mnemonics not pneumonics you twit
Reply
Guest (Ken Ingle)
Exercizing the brain
for the computer:
Availability
Cost
Reply
Guest (Ken Ingle)
Exercizing the brain
for the computer:
Availability
Cost
Reply
Guest (Ron Neyvatte)
Exercising the brain
How would people with accelerated deterioration i.e. Alzheimers or Picks diseases be affected?
Reply
Guest (M. C. Mykel)
It can be tough but worth it.
I am 71 and just finished the H&R Block tax course. I didnt do well and I think that it is partly because it went too fast. I needed to have them slow down. When I young I was pretty bright and could pick up new skills rather easily. Not any more. I have to work at it and repeat things several times in ddifferent ways.
Reply
Guest (Anon)
Might be the cats meow and make geniuses
out of our aging population, but at a price of $495 for the *individual* version looks like the marketing people at that company arent taking their own medicine. Oh well, looks like yet another cool technology fated to oblivion as far as market success.
Reply
Guest (anon)
ha ha ha pneumonics
mnemonics not pneumonics you twit
Reply
Guest (Ron Neyvatte)
Exercising the brain
How would people with accelerated deterioration i.e. Alzheimers or Picks diseases be affected?
Reply
Guest (M. C. Mykel)
It can be tough but worth it.
I am 71 and just finished the H&R Block tax course. I didnt do well and I think that it is partly because it went too fast. I needed to have them slow down. When I young I was pretty bright and could pick up new skills rather easily. Not any more. I have to work at it and repeat things several times in ddifferent ways.
Reply