We discussed this very topic three years ago when we highlighted the Telegraph article Mobile phones ‘dumbing down brain power’. More recently NPR broadcasted a story (Digital Overload: Your Brain On Gadgets) on the topic of technology and its effects on the brain and author and speaker Nicholas Carr recently wrote in the Atlantic Monthly how the use of technology has changed the way he absorbs and processes information.

Mr. Carr’s perspective is that now that he gets most of his information via a computer screen (vs. printed media) he has changed the way he processes information and perhaps is even “remapping his neural circuitry.” He believes that he’s losing the ability to concentrate and stay focused on longer pieces of writing because he has gotten accustomed to scanning through lot of bits of information available via the Web.

So how do we find the balance and how do we minimize the negative effects of technology to our brain? A recent article in the New York Times, Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime, provides compelling arguments that our brain needs downtime in order to digest things we’ve experienced while active.

As we discussed in the previous entry 5 Strategies to Improve Memory de-stressing is a scientifically accepted way to improve your memory and other cognitive abilities. However, digital devices give us instant access to information and can increase stress. If an email comes in to our inbox we feel compelled to react, which in reality is a mild fight or flight response that is often associated with stressful events.

Technology is great! It is the reason we are living longer, staying more connected, and better informed than any other society in history. However, technology should work for us, not against us. Here are a few tips to assist you achieve this:

• Set self-imposed limits. It is okay to turn off your Blackberry once in awhile.
• Invoke your power to say no. Technology makes it easy for people to fire requests at you without knowing your current load. Some people feel the need to field every request that comes their way. If you are overloaded or overwhelmed make sure that is communicated.
• Take a vacation from technology. Go on a fast from information for a week (or two). There is a very good chance the world will still be here when you return.

One of the studies that Dr. Cummings uses to illustrate his point is a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry we discussed on Brain Fitness for Life back in March in the blog post Living Life Purposefully Might Ward Off Alzheimer’s. The results of that study indicate that people who say their lives have a purpose are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment.

He also points to a British study published last year in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry which concluded that men working beyond the normal retirement age of 65 appeared to keep dementia at bay and that Alzheimer’s symptoms were delayed about seven weeks for each extra year the men worked.

There is a clear scientific correlation between staying active and improving your chances of avoiding, or at least postponing, cognitive impairment. The ways to stay active are as limitless as your imagination. What is important is that you actively live your life, whether through employment, hobbies, or social contribution. Staying active, especially if you are a senior, is clearly an important part of keeping yourself mentally fit.

1. Brain size: The male brain is typically about ten percent larger than the female brain. Although the extra mass does give males more processing power, this doesn’t make men more intelligent. Rather, science believes the reason for the increased brain mass is to accommodate the bigger body mass and muscle groups of the male (human).

2. Brain hemispheres: Many men are sharply left-brain dominant, while women tend to be more evenly balanced between left and right-brain processing. Women are therefore  thought to be slightly more intuitive, and sometimes better communicators. Men are often less socially adept, and are more task-oriented thinkers than females.

3. Relationships: Women are purported to have better communication skills and emotional intelligence than men. Women tend to be group-oriented, and apt to seek solutions by talking through issues. Men can have trouble picking up on emotional cues unless they’re clearly verbalized – making for tricky communications between the sexes.

4. Mathematical skills: The inferior-parietal lobule, which controls numerical brain function, is larger in males than in females. On standardized tests, men often score higher on mathematical tests than women.

5. Stress: When faced with stressful situations, men usually employ ‘fight or flight’ tactics, while women use a ‘tend or befriend’ response that is rooted in their natural instincts for caring for their children and establishing strong group bonds.

6. Language: Women often excel at language-based tasks for two reasons: two brain areas that deal with language are larger in females, and females process language in both hemispheres while males favor a single brain half.

7. Emotions: Since women tend to have a larger deep limbic system then men, they’re more in touch with their feelings and are better at expressing their emotions. This makes women better at connecting with others, but unfortunately also more prone to different types of depression.

8. Spatial abilities: The parietal region is thicker in the female brain, making it harder for them to mentally rotate objects – an important spatial skill. Women often report difficulty with spatial tasks, both on tests and in real life. Want to test this theory with a loved one? Play HAPPYneuron’s visual-spatial game Points of View and test each others ability.

9. Susceptibility to brain function disorders: Men are more likely to be dyslexic or have other language disabilities, since they’re more often left-brain dominant. Males are also more prone to autism, ADHD and Tourette’s Syndrome, while women are more susceptible to mood disorders like anxiety and depression.

Further reading:

• His brain, her brain | U.S. News & World Report
• Love, sex and the male brain | CNN.com

Neuroplasticity is the cortical re-mapping of our nerve cells, the process that helps us continually learn. It refers to the ability of the brain to act and react as we experience a change in our environment or develop a new skill.

It is estimated that the ever-changing, neuroplastic characteristics of our brain influence over 100 billion of our nerve cells over a lifetime. When we engage our brain in new ways, we create new pathways for neural communication. As adults, what we learn and adapt to throughout life rearranges our existing neurons. Thus, neuroplasticity is what enables learning, memory, and adaptation through our experience with the world around us.

In Dr. Joenna Driemeyer’s popular research about the cognitive effects of learning how to juggle, Driemeyer’s research team concluded that, “the qualitative change (i.e. learning of a new task) is more critical for the brain to change its structure than continued training of an already-learned task.”  Furthermore, recent discoveries in neuroplasticity are paving the way for treatment of neurologic injury and disease, something that until recently was unexplored because of a lack of evidence regarding neuroplasticity.

The moral of the story is that it is important to engage in new activities. Exercising your brain is as important as exercising your body. If you continue to build your cognitive reserve through mental practice and a healthy lifestyle you are likely to maintain your brain’s plasticity, and your ability to learn, as you age.

In a recently published study, Gray matter correlates of cognitive ability tests used for vocational guidance, by Dr. Richard Haier (from the University of California), Haier and his team used MRI scans to determine which brain areas were implicated in a host of different “ability factors” like analytical reasoning, general intelligence, memory skills and spatial awareness. They then looked at these ability metrics and compared them with individual test scores from a battery of cognitive tests (completed by 40 individuals seeking vocational guidance). The proposed hypothesis being suggested is that brain scans may be helpful for job seekers looking for career path guidance.

Cognitive functions cannot be perfectly isolated in the brain. There is no perfect map showing the exact areas where thoughts and motives are processed. Most mental tasks involve a complicated web of neural circuits, which interact in varying degrees with each other throughout the brain. Neurons have been likened to the instruments in a symphony orchestra combining their tenor, volume, and resonance to create a particular musical effect (National Geographic | Beyond the Brain).

This system of neural circuits (often referred to as gray matter) is a major component of the central nervous system, which consists of neuronal cell bodies, dendrites, unmyelinated axons and myelinated axons, glial cells and capillaries. The purpose of the system is to route sensory and motor stimulus to interneurons of the cranial nervous system. This process creates our responses to stimulus through chemical synapse activity.

Haier is not alone in his findings. In the study Relationships between IQ and Regional Cortical Gray Matter Thickness in Healthy Adults by Dr. Katherine Narr et al, Dr. Narr and her team suggest that there is a relationship between I.Q. and regional cortical gray matter thickness as well.

More researchers have deduced that the psychometric structure of cognitive tests can help identify brain networks related to cognitive abilities beyond simply a general intelligence factor.

Another cognitive researcher, Professor Willem Verbeke (Rotterdam’s Erasmus University) anticipates the usage of brain scans in some job interviews within five years’ time. Only time will tell if Verbeke’s prediction is correct, for now your resume will do.

7.  Humans have bigger brains than all other animals: Although we are the smartest mammals, we don’t have the largest brains on this planet. Whales and elephants have bigger brains than humans, but their brains are obvious less developed comparatively.

What does make us unique is our ratio of brain weight to body weight, which for humans is around 1:50. For other mammals it’s around 1:180, while for most birds its 1:220.

6.  Your brain wrinkles increase as you learn: Everyone’s brain has wrinkles. Our brain’s surface is made up of deep fissures on the outside of the brain. The smaller grooves are called sulci, and deeper ridges are called gyri. The entire surface of the brain is called the cerebral cortex, which is made up of approximately 100 billion neurons.

Our brain wrinkles allow the brain to cover more surface area in a small amount of space. Scientists believe that the large surface area afforded to us by these brain wrinkles is one of the reasons we are better thinkers than other mammals in the animal kingdom. Over the years, our brains change in various areas, but the wrinkles we gain as our brain develops remain the same until the day we die.

5.  You can learn through osmosis: Wouldn’t you like to be able to learn new things just by absorbing messages rather than having to study (such as listening to subliminal messages)? Recent studies have shown that seeing or hearing subliminal messages for a fraction of a second doesn’t actually help you learn. Other studies have challenged the assertion that you can learn a language as you sleep simply by listening to language tapes. Unfortunately, almost all learning takes conscious effort.

4.  A damaged brain never heals: A mild brain injury, such as a concussion, often leads to a complete recovery. But even those who suffer severe damage from strokes, bleeds and physical injuries can recover, at least partially, and people in comas for years have been known to wake up. Our brain possesses amazing abilities to heal itself. It is also important to build your brain reserve and exercise your cognitive functions.

3.  Drugs and alcohol create holes in the brain: While heavy narcotics use can certainly damage your brain, drugs do not cause holes in brain tissue. Another fallacy is that brain cells die because of alcohol consumption. What’s really happening is that alcohol and drug abuse retard activity in certain brain centers and, as a result, brain scans will appear to show holes in the brain. However, what those pictures represent is simply that those areas of the brain have decreased activity levels… still not a good thing. Dr. Amen’s clinic is famous for this type of imaging and various brain scans can be found here.

2.  We only use a small portion of our brain: Although you never use all of your brain capacity at the same time, the 10% figure is simply a myth. In the Scientific American article aptly titled Do People Only Use 10 Percent of Their Brains? neurologist Barry Gordon at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore states, “it turns out though, that we use virtually every part of the brain, and that [most of] the brain is active almost all the time. Let’s put it this way: the brain represents three percent of the body’s weight and uses 20 percent of the body’s energy.”

1.  Our brain is gray: While it’s true that a portion of our brain is light gray – we all know the term ‘gray matter’, which refers to nerve cells – other parts of our brain are white, red, pink and even black. White matter consists of nerve fibers that link our cells together, while the red and pink areas are so colored because of blood and blood vessels. The black areas are found in the basal ganglia, and get their color from neuromelanin, which is similar to the pigment in our hair and skin.

Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in America. At any given time this disease affects over 5 million lives in the United States alone.

As we reported in the blog post Alzheimer’s Disease 2010 Facts & Figures, from 2000-2006 death rates have declined for almost all major diseases – heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, stroke and HIV/AIDS – while deaths from Alzheimer’s disease during this same period rose more than 46%.

Unfortunately science is still baffled by Alzheimer’s. Although there are some innovative methods on the horizon for early detection, many health officials fear that we are ill-prepared for the degree in which this disease is going to affect us in the near future.

The good news is that many states foresee this upcoming issue and are planning accordingly. There are already 12 states with plans in preparation for the increase, and an additional 18 states in the process of building the same. These are comprehensive plans that include input from residential and community care providers, legislators, state agencies, professional and family caregivers, and also include input from Alzheimer’s disease patients themselves.

As America is struggling to return from our recent recession many states are cash strapped and so it is feared that this important issue might not get addressed appropriately. Here is an excerpt from the Alzheimer’s Association’s open letter:

“… as states struggle to balance unprecedented budget deficits, the Alzheimer’s Association sent a letter in support of extending the enhanced FMAP rate to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Without this money, we know states will have to make deeper cuts to the services and supports important to persons with Alzheimer’s disease and their families.”

This is an important issue that touches most of us. If you would like more information regarding the current situation in your own state and/or how you can help, a good place to start is your local Alzheimer’s Association Chapter.

When someone suffers from an acquired brain injury (or ABI) their impairments can range from motor dysfunction, problems with language, cognition impairment, limited sensory processing and emotional disturbances.  The presence of one or many of these symptoms can have a profound effect on the quality of life of the sufferer.

Music therapy is one of the many tools used by cognitive therapists for the purpose of cognitive remediation.  The process uses music as a means to aid rehabilitation. Music therapy takes many forms:

• Rhythmic stimulation to aid movement and walking
• Singing to address speaking and voice quality
• Listening to distracting music to reduce pain
• Music improvisations to address emotional needs
• Listening to calming music to enhance a sense of well-being

Cognitive therapists that are trained in therapeutic musical techniques use these methods to try and improve the quality of life for their patients without the use of medication (or to reduce the patient’s reliance on medication). One technique commonly used in music therapy is rhythmic auditory stimulation (or RAS), which uses music with varying tempos to stimulate a patient’s motor units.

In the Cochrane Music Therapy Review, seven studies were examined (involving 184 participants), all of which were carried out by trained music therapists. The Review concluded that RAS showed promise for improving mobility and gait in brain injury patients.

If you are interested in learning more about music therapies, try visiting the American Music Therapy Association Website for more information.

The study (Vitamin D Is Associated with Cognitive Function in Elders Receiving Home Health Services) involved more than a thousand participants between the ages of 65 and 99 receiving health care services in the home.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is not naturally abundant in food. However, many of us produce this vitamin endogenously when we are outdoors and sunlight strikes our skin. That is why it was significance to study this particular section of the elderly (individuals receiving care in the home). People who receive health care in the home usually do so because of a lack of mobility and therefore seldom get exposed to natural light. In fact, Tucker found that only 35 percent of the participants in her study had sufficient vitamin D blood levels.

The interesting finding in Tucker’s study is the group that had sufficient vitamin D levels performed better on cognitive aptitude tests than those with deficient and insufficient vitamin D levels.

Although these finding are intriguing, please do not rush out and buy vitamin D supplements. Researchers are still unclear what dose, if any, is most effective. Some water-soluble vitamins are simply eliminated by the body once you have reached a certain level of internal saturation (for instance, most people take more vitamin C than they need, which is then simply eliminated by the body). Vitamin D on the other hand is stored in fat, and an overdose can cause significant problems.

If you are able, your best bet is to get outside and enjoy a little sunshine using proper UV protection.  The Fourth of July holiday is a perfect excuse this weekend to get outdoors and naturally produce some vitamin D in your own body.

1) Take control of your time

Science tells us that almost all of us overestimate what we can get done in a given day. We plan our day and then interruptions, unforeseen contingencies, and time drains get in our way.  Don’t be afraid to be honest about what you can accomplish. Set reasonable expectations (which take into account the time needed for your daily disruptions) and exonerate yourself of any guilt that you weren’t born super human. (To learn more about the scientific studies and different time controlling techniques try reading Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America.)

2) Get the sleep you need

As a result of being an overworked society, many of us are not getting the sleep we need. When you do not get enough sleep you begin to build up a sleep debt. This lack of sleep is a stressor on the body resulting in fatigue, diminished alertness, and a gloomy outlook. A result of getting better sleep is a better outlook on life.

3) Find Flow in simple pleasures

“Flow” means being fully immersed in a feeling of full involvement when engaging in a particular activity.

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks at TED about flow

Believe it or not, the most expensive forms of leisure, such as a luxury vacation, often have shown to be less rejuvenating to the body and mind than simple pleasures such as walking with loved ones, hobbies, or growing a garden. The reasons for this are unclear, but it has been suggested that cost, planning, and/or unaligned expectations could be the culprit. There really are simple pleasures in life that contribute to our overall level of happiness.

4) Pretend you’re happy

As I previously mentioned in our blog article 7 Ways to Improve Your Energy and Mental Focus, laughter is good medicine! For some, just visualizing being in a happier frame of mind can do the trick. Even if you have to force yourself out of a bad mood by faking it, why not? Studies show when you scowl, the whole world seems to scowl back. Wear a smile and chances are you will get a few in return.

5) Be a good friend

Ultimately it is our friends and loved ones that increase our satisfaction during good times and help us through difficult times. Even time spent with a loving pet has proven to enhance our happiness. Make sure you foster and honor these relationships.

6) Remember the good from each day

Keeping a gratitude journal has helped a lot of people improve their overall level of happiness.  Even if you have had a horrible day, it is pretty difficult to not find one good thing that happened: a smile from a friend, a hug from your child, overcoming a challenge. Documenting and relishing positive events has been shown to lift our spirits.

7) Live with purpose

People who believe that life has meaning and live with purpose tend to be happier than those that believe we just exist. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to believe in religion, but it does mean that you should feel that you have a meaningful place in contributing to the greater good of our society (in whichever form that might take). Living with purpose also has been shown as a potential way to reduce your Alzheimer’s risk (which I discussed in the entry Living Life Purposefully Might Ward Off Alzheimer’s).

If you are able to implement any of the suggestions we’ve outlined into your own life please let us know. We would love to hear from you.