I want to be a “superager”!

According to an article by Mitch Smith in last Friday’s Chicago Tribune, Northwestern University has conducted an interesting research study among “superagers.” The article states that Superagers are “…someone who continues to function at a high cognitive level even as most people her age see their memories recede.”

The article includes a short profile of Barb Shaeffer, 85, (see photo above) of Chicago, who “…does two crossword puzzles every morning. She often completes an entire book on her Kindle in a day and is preparing for her three fall classes, one of which she co-teaches, through a Northwestern University program for retirees. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune)

Smith notes that “Northwestern University researchers examined 12 such superagers from the Chicago area, ages 80 to 90, and found that the cortex of their brains — a region important for cognition — looked more like a middle-aged person's than an average octogenarian's.”

The article quotes Emily Rogalski, a Northwestern professor on the research team, who said that "A lot of studies are figuring out what's going wrong with the brain. We hope by identifying what's going right with the brain that we can … develop strategies for avoiding disease and disability."

I like to think that my mother, who does the crossword puzzle every day, and my father, who is hooked on “Great Lecture” CDs, would both be good candidates for their study.

Here’s a link to the Tribune article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-super-agers-20120817,0,2826004.story

And here’s a link to the research study abstract from the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=8656556  

Learn while sleeping

According to a recent article in Smithsonian.com, a new study by Northwestern University researchers indicates that, “…depending on what we hear during the night, it is indeed possible to reinforce existing memories and enhance our recall after we wake up.”

Notice the words “enhance our recall” instead of “learn something totally new” like trigonometry or a foreign language. “The critical difference is that our research shows that memory is strengthened for something you’ve already learned,” said Paul J. Reber, a psychologist at Northwestern and co-author of the study, in a press release. “Rather than learning something new in your sleep, we’re talking about enhancing an existing memory by re-activating information recently acquired.”

So why is that important for brain tumor survivors? I suspect, and I’m sure somebody will correct me, that some of us have trouble retaining newly learned information, like a new foreign language words, and that there’s a clue in this research on how to help us with that.

Here’s a link to the Smithsonian.com article: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/06/experiments-show-we-really-can-learn-while-we-sleep/

And here’s a link to the original article, which costs $$, in nature neuroscience: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.3152.html

Practicing the trombone improves your ability to hear

Actually, that statement is a little misleading.  According to a new study from nearby Northwestern University in Evanston indicates that “Lifelong playing of musical instruments has a positive impact on the brain”. What impact?  It helps you better hear somebody speaking in a noisy place, like a restaurant or bar.

Now it is true that there is nothing in the article that attributes the improvement solely to trombone playing. At the same time, I feel that I need to point out that the Chicago Tribune article does show a picture of a trombone player.  And, in case you’re wondering, yes, I did play trombone in the Michigan State University Spartan Marching Band.

According to Nina Kraus, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, and the principal investigator of its Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, clarifies the results of the study saying, “Hearing what your spouse says when you’re in a noisy restaurant, for example, is harder when you’re older. But this study shows that musicians are faster at processing noise than non-musicians are. This shows us there is a biological impact of musical training.”

I find this both fun and interesting.  So I went to the Northwestern University’s Neuroscience Laboratory’s site and listened to Dr. Kraus talk about how the brain “hears” music. I loved hearing talking about the similarity between the sound wave and corresponding brain waves. 

Here’s a link to a video of her talking about that:  http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/brainvolts/fys_kraus/kraus.html

But wait, there’s more!  According to Kraus, “We’ve been pleased to hear from educators who have used our website to argue for funding for continuation of musical education. We’re giving them biological evidence that, yes, continued musical education matters.” Here’s the link to the PPT slides recapping their research projects including the evidence to which she refers: http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/brainvolts/slideshows/music/index.php

 
And here’s a link to the article in the Chicago Tribune: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-28/news/ct-x-music-training-study-20120328_1_musical-instruments-musical-training-musical-education