Interesting Recent Studies and Articles on Neuroplasticity, Cognitive Reserve, and Brain Fitness

Here are four stud­ies and arti­cles, pub­lished in Jan­u­ary, that report very inter­est­ing find­ings and offer inspir­ing ideas:

• An arti­cle on the role of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty in Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords’ recovery.
• A new study that used a blood test able to detect beta amy­loid 42 (the pro­tein frag­ment that makes up Alzheimer’s plaque) and sug­gest­ed that the asso­ci­a­tion between amy­loid and cog­ni­tive decline could be mod­i­fied by cog­ni­tive reserve.
• An arti­cle on a new brain scan tech­nol­o­gy to detect Alzheimer’s pathol­o­gy in the brain.
• An arti­cle report­ing the answer of Don Tap­scott to the ques­tion “What sci­en­tif­ic con­cept would improve every­body’s cog­ni­tive toolkit?”

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1. This arti­cle from the Wash­ing­ton Post explains how neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty will help Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords recov­er from her brain injury:

brain reor­ga­ni­za­tion after injury is far more com­mon and exten­sive than pre­vi­ous­ly thought … neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty depends to a great degree on expe­ri­ence — which is to say, what the brain is forced to do in the crit­i­cal weeks and months after it is injured.

When an area with a spe­cif­ic func­tion is destroyed, the brain first attempts to recruit near­by cells, which are often doing sim­i­lar tasks, to change and per­form the func­tion of the destroyed cells.

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2. In this study, Dr. Yaffe and her col­leagues mea­sured risks of Alzheimer’s by mea­sur­ing beta amy­loid (the pro­tein frag­ment that makes up Alzheimer’s plaque) lev­els in the blood. They found that the less beta amy­loid in the blood, the more cog­ni­tive decline. How­ev­er lifestyle fac­tors can affect this relationship:

old­er adults with­out demen­tia and with low­er ?-amy­loid 42/40 lev­els have an increased rate of cog­ni­tive decline over 9 years com­pared with those with high­er levels

the asso­ci­a­tion between ?-amy­loid plas­ma lev­el is greater among those with less edu­ca­tion, low­er lit­er­a­cy, and an APOE e4 allele

those with high cog­ni­tive reserve had less or no asso­ci­a­tion with ?-amy­loid lev­el and rate of decline

In oth­er words peo­ple with high cog­ni­tive reserve (as mea­sured here by their edu­ca­tion, lit­er­a­cy, and absence of the APOE e4 allele): a) expe­ri­ence less cog­ni­tive decline than peo­ple with low reserve and b) are more resis­tant to the accu­mu­la­tion of ?-amy­loid in the brain. This is anoth­er great evi­dence that men­tal stim­u­la­tion does work as we dis­cussed here earlier.

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3. This NY Times arti­cle reports on a new brain scan show­ing the char­ac­ter­is­tic plaques of Alzheimer’s dis­ease in the brain of a liv­ing per­son. If approved by the FDA such scan would be cru­cial in help­ing estab­lish an Alzheimer’s diagnosis:

Such scans would be espe­cial­ly valu­able in a com­mon and trou­bling sit­u­a­tion — try­ing to make a diag­no­sis when it is not clear whether a patient’s mem­o­ry prob­lems are a result of Alzheimer’s dis­ease or some­thing else.

Some peo­ple have plaque with­out hav­ing Alzheimer’s, so if a scan shows plaque, doc­tors will have to use their clin­i­cal judg­ment, tak­ing into account a patient’s symp­toms, in decid­ing what the scan results mean.

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4. This arti­cle from the Huff­in­g­ton Post repro­duces the inspir­ing answer of Don Tap­scott to the ques­tion “What sci­en­tif­ic con­cept would improve every­body’s cog­ni­tive toolk­it?”

The exis­tence of life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty is no longer in doubt. The brain runs on a “use it or lose it” mot­to. So could we “use it to build it right?” Sure­ly if we are proac­tive, the demands of our infor­ma­tion rich, mul­ti-stim­uli, fast paced, mul­ti­task­ing, dig­i­tal exis­tence can be shaped to our advantage

Want to be a sur­geon? Become a gamer or rehearse while on the sub­way. Rehearsal can pro­duce changes in the motor cor­tex as big as those induced by phys­i­cal movement.

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If you want to learn more about neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, check out these relat­ed posts:

• Brain Plas­tic­i­ty: How learn­ing changes your brain

• 15 FAQs on Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and Brain Fitness