Your Brain On Yoga…

…is pretty good. Actually, its better than good. The Telegraph, a UK newspaper report about a new study in which “…researchers were surprised to see that participants showed more improvement in their reaction times and accuracy on cognitive tasks after yoga practice than after the aerobic exercise session, which showed no significant improvements on the working memory and inhibitory control scores.“

Here’s a link to the article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10103581/Yoga-better-for-your-brain-than-exercise-study-finds.html?ll_leid=259&refer=3745

Image credit: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/photo_13906060_yoga-utthita-hasta-padangustasana-one-leg-balance-pose-by-woman-in-red-cloth-on-tea-plantations-in-m.html'>byheaven / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

The Importance of “Fluid Intelligence”

I just finished reading a terrific article on fluid intelligence by Dan Hurley that was published in the NY Times on April 18^th.

According to Hurley, “Psychologists have long regarded intelligence as coming in two flavors: crystallized intelligence, the treasure trove of stored-up information and how-to knowledge (the sort of thing tested on “Jeopardy!” or put to use when you ride a bicycle); and fluid intelligence. Crystallized intelligence grows as you age; fluid intelligence has long been known to peak in early adulthood, around college age, and then to decline gradually.”

So what is fluid intelligence and why should I care about it?  According to his article, “Fluid intelligence (is) the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things.”

Hurley goes on to report that, “What long-term memory is to crystallized intelligence, working memory is to fluid intelligence. Working memory is more than just the ability to remember a telephone number long enough to dial it; it’s the capacity to manipulate the information you’re holding in your head — to add or subtract those numbers, place them in reverse order or sort them from high to low. Understanding a metaphor or an analogy is equally dependent on working memory; you can’t follow even a simple statement like “See Jane run” if you can’t put together how “see” and “Jane” connect with “run.” Without it, you can’t make sense of anything.”

Hurley traces the recent explosion in intelligence training back to a couple of relatively recent research studies. One of the studies that jump-started the interest in brain-building was a 2008 study by Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl in which they found that young adults who practiced a rather simple brain-builder game “…showed improvement in a fundamental cognitive ability known as ‘fluid’ intelligence: the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things. The implication was that playing the game literally makes people smarter.”

Since the publication of this study,”… others have achieved results similar to Jaeggi’s not only in elementary-school children but also in preschoolers, college students and the elderly. 

The training tasks generally require only 15 to 25 minutes of work per day, five days a week, and have been found to improve scores on tests of fluid intelligence in as little as four weeks. 

Follow-up studies linking that improvement to real-world gains in schooling and job performance are just getting under way. But already, people with disorders including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (A.D.H.D.) and traumatic brain injury have seen benefits from training. Gains can persist for up to eight months after treatment.”

To be sure, there are still well-respected researchers who are suspicious of the results.

But there also guys like Harold Hawkins, a cognitive psychologist at the Office of Naval Research who oversees most of the U.S. military’s studies in the area, who expressed, according to Hurley, a now more and more common view, “For him, the question now is not whether cognitive training works but how strongly and how best to achieve it." In the NY Times article he’s quoted as saying, “Until about four or five years ago, we believed that fluid intelligence is immutable in adulthood. No one believed that training could possibly achieve dramatic improvements in this very fundamental cognitive ability. Then Jaeggi’s work came along. That’s when I started to move my funding from some other areas into this area. I personally believe, and if I didn’t believe it I wouldn’t be making an investment of the taxpayers’ money, that there’s something here. It’s potentially of extremely profound importance.”

As a brain-tumor victim, I found  Hurley’s article thoughtful, well-researched and helpful.  I think you will, too.  Here’s a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/can-you-make-yourself-smarter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Perhaps the most important learning I’m taking away from this article is the importance of working memory and it's connection with fluid intelligence.  With that in mind (so to speak), I’m going to spend more time on working memory focused games in Lumosity, e.g. Memory Lane (which I haven’t tried yet), Memory Match, Memory Match Overload, Monster Garden and Rhyme Workout.

My Working Memory Isn’t Working

I don’t know why, but my working memory isn’t working very well.

When I first read about “working memory” I was confused.  What is a “working” memory and how is that different from a plain old common found-around-the-house memory?

Well, for starters, according to the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, “The term working memory refers to a brain system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of the information necessary for such complex cognitive tasks as language comprehension, learning, and reasoning.”

I think of it as the difference between being able to remember that Al Kaline played right field for the Detroit Tigers in the 1960s, and being able to remember the phone number I looked up just before receiving a phone call.

In addition to mentioning the part about temporary storage and manipulation of data, Lumosity  - www.lumosity.com - points out that “It is critical for keeping your train of thought, making a point, and generally figuring things out. It has also been linked to aspects of fluid intelligence.” Lumosity goes on to say that working memory is important for:

• Learning and reasoning
• IQ and intelligence
• Working with information in your head

They have three games that really focus on working memory:

• Memory Match
• Monster Garden
• Memory Match Overload

They aren’t my favorite games, but they are they weak points that I need to work on. So I am (even though I rather play another game of Word Bubbles).

If you want to know more, according to an excerpt from Think Smart: A Neuroscientist’s Prescription for Improving Your Brain’s Performance by Richard Restak, posted on AARP’s website “The greatest enemy to people’s working memory is distraction. If you’re thinking of something else and aren’t really listening when you are told a telephone number the sequence won’t be encoded in your brain. Later, you won’t be able to retrieve it because distraction during the initial encoding process interfered with memory consolidation.” Here’s a link to that article: http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/books/info-08-2009/excerpt_from_think_smart_a_neuroscientist_s_prescription_for_improving_your_brain_s_performance.html

If you’ve had success improving your working memory, please let me know how you did it.

Senior moments, distractions and multitasking

Do you hate it when you’re thinking about something, get interrupted and then can’t seem to remember what you were thinking about? The scary part is that’s normal for older adults.

If you’re over 60, there’s now a study that tells us that older brains just don’t hang onto memories as well as younger brains when interrupted.  The name for your ability to do so is called “working memory” – which, according to a recent AARP article helps you hold information in the mind for brief intervals, an ability essential to mental functioning.

The new research reveals that “younger brains switch very quickly between two different neurological networks — one encodes short-term memory, while the other is activated when we need to pay attention to something new. For older brains, the switch is harder.”

"This study provides the first understanding of the neural brain mechanisms responsible for multitasking and memory in older adults," says the study's senior author, Adam Gazzaley, M.D., director of the UCSF Neuroscience Imaging Center. The research also shows that working memory is very fragile, he says. "Over the course of seconds, one interruption erases memory quality" (italics added).

Somehow that makes me nervous.  Does that mean just one little interruption – A phone call? A bathroom trip? The timer going off? – and you forget that you were supposed to go turn off the oven?

I’ve been there and forgotten that. 

For you research junkies, here’s a link to the study: http://gazzaleylab.ucsf.edu/files/2012_Wais-Martin-Gazz_BrainResearch.pdf

So, as boomers to we just say, well, shoot, I guess you should just walk me over to the old-folks home?" Of course not, we're the generation that refuses to accept the inevitable. That, and companies like Lumosity have a bunch of online games designed to bolster our working memory. As a certified Lumosity nut, I'm thinking Monster Garden, Rhyme Workout and Memory Match for starters. For me, these are hard and I need to kick myself to do them more often.

And here’s AARP’s tips regarding “Multitasking, Memory and Your Brain”

• Focus: If you want to increase your chances of remembering something, stay focused on it. Don't allow yourself to be interrupted when you're studying important information or doing something you'll want to remember later, such as hiding a key or creating a new secret password.

• Cut distractions: When high quality and performance are demanded, in the workplace or at home, cut out distractions: Shut the door, turn off your cellphone and quit your email program.

• Brain train: Keep your brain as active as possible to preserve its plasticity. Learn a new language. Cultivate new hobbies. Exercise. Challenge yourself and stay engaged.

And here’s a link to the AARP article: http://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-05-2011/multitasking-switch-in-older-brains.html#commentarySlot