"How Exercise Makes Your Brain Grow"

According to a terrific article by David DiSalvo in Fortune magazine entitled "How Exercise Makes your Brain Grow", scientists have learned how endurance exercise helps build new brain cells. If you’re the victim of a brain tumor, traumatic brain injury or just feel you drew a short straw in the gene pool, understanding “how” is important.

Why? Because there’s big news in the “how” area as DiSalvo reports that “Research into ‘neurogenesis’—the ability of certain brain areas to grow new brain cells—has recently taken an exciting turn. Not only has research discovered that we can foster new brain cell growth through exercise, but it may eventually be possible to “bottle” that benefit in prescription medication.”

Couch potatoes of the world are jumping in joy! (Or, since they’re couch potatoes, maybe they’re just smiling broadly from the safety of their sofa).

At this point in reading the article I was somewhat incredulous, how could this be? Well, according to DiSalvo’s article “…researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School (HMS) have also discovered that it may be possible to capture these benefits in a pill.  The same protein that stimulates brain growth via exercise could potentially be bottled and given to patients experiencing cognitive decline, including those in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

If you’re a happy being a couch potatoes, you may be asking yourself “Why is this exciting?” Here’s one expert’s conclusion:  “What is exciting is that a natural substance can be given in the bloodstream that can mimic some of the effects of endurance exercise on the brain,” said Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, of Dana-Farber and HMS and co-senior author of the research report with Michael E. Greenberg, PhD, chair of neurobiology at HMS.”

I found this so exciting, so provocative and so interesting I might even start jogging (at least until I can buy the pills at Walgreens).

Here’s a link to the Fortune Magazine article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2013/10/13/how-exercise-makes-your-brain-grow/

 

And here’s a link to the study involving mice: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155041311300377X

Image credit: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/photo_21130496_the-words-brain-power-on-pills-capsules-or-vitamins-to-illustrate-natural-or-alternative-supplement-.html'>iqoncept / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Grandpa, you don’t get dessert if you haven’t played “World of Warcraft” today

When my youngest daughter was in college, she seemed addicted to “World of Warcraft” and I wasn’t thrilled about it. It not seems that maybe I should've been thrilled, or at least not so negative.

For those who don’t play, or don’t have a son or daughter who has, according to Wikipedia, World of Warcraft is a "massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) With 10.2 million subscribers as of December 2011." World of Warcraft is currently the world's most-subscribed MMORPG, and holds the Guiness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers. As with other MMORPGs, players control a character avatar within a game world in third- or first-person view, exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players.

 Ok, so what does this have to do with brain health?

 A couple of researchers, Anne McLaughlin and Jason Allaire, psychology professors at North Carolina State University, thought that the game would improve the cognitive ability in older adults.  To test their theory, as reported by the LA Times, “the researchers asked thirty-nine adults ages 60 to 77 years old to play ‘World of Warcraft’ for roughly two hours a day for a two-week period.”

They found that the two weeks of playing didn’t have much of an effect on the people who had scored well on the baseline cognitive test, but there was a significant improvement in the spatial ability and focus for those who scored low on the initial test.

The results of the study were published in the peer reviewed journal Computers in Human Behavior.
 
In an interview with The Times, Allaire said he and McLaughlin looked at several different video games before settling on World of Warcraft as the one they would use for the study.

"It met a bunch of criteria we had," he said. "Primarily that it is really engaging and cognitively complex, so we chose a game that we thought would have the best chance of exercising older adults' cognitive abilities and thereby improving them."

Another benefit to the game is that it has what Allaire described as lots of scaffolding — tutorials that help someone who is not familiar with video games figure out how to make their way around the game. It also has a customizable interface so that text could be enlarged for players who might have trouble reading small print.

So am I going to start playing World of Warcraft?  Probably not.  Why?  I'm not quite sixty.

 Here’s a link to the Tribune article: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-world-of-warcraft-boosts-cognitive-ability-20120223,0,5231884.story

A Good Reason to Take up Piano

According to a group of Canadian scientists who specialize in learning, memory and language in children have found evidence that pre-schoolers can improve their verbal intelligence after only 20 days of classroom instruction using interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons.

As reported in Robert Whent’s blog, “the study -- conducted at York University by Dr. Sylvain Moreno, who is now the Lead Scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute (RRI) Centre for Brain Fitness, showed that the cognitive benefit was striking and consistent in 90 per cent of the children who took the four-week learning program and was additionally confirmed by brain imaging data that indicated brain changes had taken place related to the training. "Our data have confirmed a rapid transfer of cognitive benefits in young children after only 20 days of training on an interactive, music-based cognitive training program. The strength of this effect in almost all of the children was remarkable," said Dr. Moreno.”

Will this work for brain damaged adults like me?  Who knows? But I doubt that it’d hurt.  So I’m adding to my inexhaustible to-do list the idea of revisiting my piano lessons of years ago.

Here’s link to the blog posting:  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/robert-whent/mozart-effect-children_b_1337047.html