Brain fitness
Encyclopedia
The term brain fitness reflects a hypothesis that cognitive abilities can be maintained or improved by exercising the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...

, in analogy to the way physical fitness
Physical fitness
Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness , and specific fitness...

 is improved by exercising the body
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...

. Although there is strong evidence that aspects of brain structure remain plastic throughout life, and that high levels of mental activity are associated with reduced risks of age-related dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...

, scientific support for the concept of "brain fitness" is limited. The term is virtually never used in the scientific literature, but is commonly used in the context of self-help books and commercial products. It first came into play in the 1980s, and appeared in the titles of self-help books in 1989 and 1990.

Overview

Brain fitness is the capacity of a person to meet the various cognitive demands of life. It is evident in an ability to assimilate information, comprehend relationships, and develop reasonable conclusions and plans. Brain fitness can be developed by formal education, being actively mentally engaged in life, continuing to learn, and exercises designed to challenge cognitive skills. Healthy lifestyle habits including mental stimulation, physical exercise, good nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....

, stress management
Stress management
Stress management is the alteration of stress and especially chronic stress often for the purpose of improving everyday functioning.Stress produces numerous symptoms which vary according to persons, situations, and severity. These can include physical health decline as well as depression. According...

, and sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...

 can improve brain fitness. On the other hand, chronic stress
Stress management
Stress management is the alteration of stress and especially chronic stress often for the purpose of improving everyday functioning.Stress produces numerous symptoms which vary according to persons, situations, and severity. These can include physical health decline as well as depression. According...

, anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...

, depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...

, aging, decreasing estrogen
Estrogen
Estrogens , oestrogens , or œstrogens, are a group of compounds named for their importance in the estrous cycle of humans and other animals. They are the primary female sex hormones. Natural estrogens are steroid hormones, while some synthetic ones are non-steroidal...

, excess oxytocin
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is a mammalian hormone that acts primarily as a neuromodulator in the brain.Oxytocin is best known for its roles in sexual reproduction, in particular during and after childbirth...

, and prolonged cortisol
Cortisol
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, more specifically a glucocorticoid, produced by the adrenal gland. It is released in response to stress and a low level of blood glucocorticoids. Its primary functions are to increase blood sugar through gluconeogenesis; suppress the immune system; and aid in fat,...

 can decrease brain fitness as well as general health.

Brain fitness can be measured physically at the cellular level by neurogenesis
Neurogenesis
Neurogenesis is the process by which neurons are generated from neural stem and progenitor cells. Most active during pre-natal development, neurogenesis is responsible for populating the growing brain with neurons. Recently neurogenesis was shown to continue in several small parts of the brain of...

, the creation of new neurons, and increased functional connections of synapses and dendrites between neurons. It can also be evaluated by behavioral performance as seen in cognitive reserve
Cognitive reserve
The term cognitive reserve describes the mind's resilience to neuropathological damage of the brain. The mind's resilience is evaluated behaviorally, whereas the neuropathological damage is evaluated histologically, although damage may be estimated using blood-based markers and imaging methods...

, improved memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....

, attention
Attention
Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....

, concentration, executive functions
Executive functions
The executive system is a theorized cognitive system in psychology that controls and manages other cognitive processes. It is responsible for processes that are sometimes referred to as the executive function, executive functions, supervisory attentional system, or cognitive control...

, decision-making, mental flexibility, and other core capabilities.

Like physical fitness, brain fitness can be improved by various challenging activities such as playing chess or bridge, dancing regularly, practicing yoga and tai chi and also by engaging in more structured computer based workouts. Some research shows that brain stimulation can help prevent age-related cognitive decline, reverse behavioral assessment declines in dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...

 and Alzheimer’s and can also improve normally functioning minds. In experiments, comparing some computer based brain boosting exercises to other computer based activities, brain exercises were found to improve attention and memory in people over age 60. Other studies have evaluated other brain boosting exercises and not found improvements. A study of 67 schoolchildren aged 10 compared 7 week Nintendo brain training to engaging in pen and paper puzzles. The study found that the brain training group suffered a 17 per cent decrease in memory tests after the seven week course, while the pen and paper group saw an increase of 33 per cent. Some experts are skeptical with regard to the real value of particular commercial brain boosting products. For example, a panel of experts gathered by Which? Magazine have concluded that ‘Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training’ for the Nintendo DS will not enhance brainpower at all. However, other researchers underline the growing amount of studies indicating that some commercial brain training products have shown measurable results in improving various cognitive skills.

Neurogenesis

Neurogenesis is the creation of new neurons. The more active a particular brain cell is, the more connections it develops with its neighboring neurons through a process called dendritic sprouting. A single neuron can have up to thirty thousand such connections, creating a dense web of interconnected activity throughout the brain. Each neuron can then be stimulated directly through experience (real or imagined) or indirectly through these connections from its neighbors, which saves the cell from cell death.

Physical exercise boosts the brain’s rate of neurogenesis throughout life, while mental exercise increases the rate at which those new brain cells survive and make functional connections into existing neural networks. Both physical exercise and the challenge from mental exercise
Environmental enrichment (neural)
Environmental enrichment concerns how the brain is affected by the stimulation of its information processing provided by its surroundings . Brains in richer, more stimulating environments, have increased numbers of synapses, and the dendrite arbors upon which they reside are more complex...

 increase the secretion of nerve growth factor
Nerve growth factor
Nerve growth factor is a small secreted protein that is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain target neurons . It also functions as a signaling molecule. It is perhaps the prototypical growth factor, in that it is one of the first to be described...

, which helps neurons grow and stay healthy.

Mental stimulation

Consistent mental challenge by novel stimuli increases production and interconnectivity of neurons and nerve growth factor, as well as prevents loss of connections and cell death. The Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) nationwide (America) clinical trial is so far the nation's largest study of cognitive training. Researchers found that improvements in cognitive ability roughly counteract the degree of long-term cognitive decline typical among older people without dementia. The results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association
Journal of the American Medical Association
The Journal of the American Medical Association is a weekly, peer-reviewed, medical journal, published by the American Medical Association. Beginning in July 2011, the editor in chief will be Howard C. Bauchner, vice chairman of pediatrics at Boston University’s School of Medicine, replacing ...

 in 2002, showed significant percentages of the 2,802 participants age 65 and older who trained for five weeks for about 2½ hours per week improved their memory, reasoning and information-processing speed.

Joe Verghese, M.D. found that people with higher activity score had lower risks of Alzheimer's and dementia. An open question in the field is whether people who will later develop Alzheimer's are naturally less active, or whether intervening to raise an activity score will delay or prevent Alzheimer's. If the latter hypothesis were true, people could lower their dementia risk by 7% simply by adding one activity per week (such as doing a crossword puzzle or playing a board game) to their schedule. According to the findings of that same study, subjects who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than subjects who did a crossword puzzle just once a week.

Activities presumed to promote brain fitness

Not all brain activity exercises the brain in the same way.
  • Activities that require you to use all your senses, break your routines and engage in novel experiences which can create BDNFs(neurotrophins) as explained in the book Keep Your Brain Alive, Workman Publishing.
  • Activities that involve ahead planning, like chess or crossword puzzle, stimulate the Frontal lobe
    Frontal lobe
    The frontal lobe is an area in the brain of humans and other mammals, located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere and positioned anterior to the parietal lobe and superior and anterior to the temporal lobes...

     area of the brain.
  • Activities like ballroom dance
    Ballroom dance
    Ballroom dance refers to a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world. Because of its performance and entertainment aspects, ballroom dance is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television....

     and basketball, train short range spatial skills, used when one walks through a short limited space, like the interior of a house.
  • Activities like learning a new language or painting require the coordinating of multiple regions of the brain.
  • Physical exercise
    Physical exercise
    Physical exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons including strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, weight loss or maintenance, as well as for the purpose of...

     promotes BDNF.

Practical effects

A significant issue in brain fitness work has been establishing that brain training exercises have impacts on brain function that exist outside the context of the training task. For example, in the ACTIVE studies, subjects were trained only in one of these three modalities: speed of processing, reasoning, or memory. Subjects did not significantly improve in non-trained modalities.

Other studies, however, have looked at changes in tests of everyday function that occur after brain-based training. In a review of these studies, the following significant effects were noted. Improvements on speed of processing training tests were related to improvements in the Timed Instrumental Activities of Daily Living test (TIADL). Evidence of ceiling effects were also noted, indicating that subjects who were further below normal at the beginning of training had the largest expected gains. Further, the effect sizes may be related to customizing the training difficulty to the performance level of the trainee. Subjects trained with one training strategy, the Useful Field of View test (UFOV), showed significant improvements in an on-the-road driving test designed to evaluate driver response during potential dangerous situations. Specifically, subjects trained with UFOV made fewer dangerous maneuvers after training. In another study, the researchers have found that action video game experience is shown to improve trainees’ probabilistic inference. These results were established both in visual and auditory tasks, indicating generalization across modalities.

See also

  • Neuroplasticity
    Neuroplasticity
    Neuroplasticity is a non-specific neuroscience term referring to the ability of the brain and nervous system in all species to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. Plasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes involved in...

  • Neurocognitive
    Neurocognitive
    Neurocognitive is a term used to describe cognitive functions closely linked to the function of particular areas, neural pathways, or cortical networks in the brain substrate layers of neurological matrix at the cellular molecular level...

  • Serious game
    Serious game
    A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, religion,...

  • Environmental enrichment
    Environmental enrichment (neural)
    Environmental enrichment concerns how the brain is affected by the stimulation of its information processing provided by its surroundings . Brains in richer, more stimulating environments, have increased numbers of synapses, and the dendrite arbors upon which they reside are more complex...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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