Brain-atrophy

Ballroom dancing can reduce aging-related brain atrophy in the hippocampus (and, more than treadmill walking!)

by 2 Comments

Social ball­room danc­ing can improve cog­ni­tive func­tions and reduce brain atro­phy in old­er adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. That’s the key find­ing of my team’s recent­ly pub­lished study in the Jour­nal of Aging and Phys­i­cal Activity.

In our study, we enrolled 25 adults over 65 years of age in either six months of twice-week­ly ball­room danc­ing class­es or six months of twice-week­ly tread­mill walk­ing class­es. None of them were engaged in for­mal danc­ing or oth­er exer­cise pro­grams. [Read more…] about Ball­room danc­ing can reduce aging-relat­ed brain atro­phy in the hip­pocam­pus (and, more than tread­mill walking!)

The Mediterranean Diet seen to substantially reduce brain shrinkage among older adults

by

mediterraneandiet_brain

—–

Less shrink­age: This is your aging brain on the Mediter­ranean diet (Los Ange­les Times):

“The aging brain is a shrink­ing brain, and a shrink­ing brain is, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, a brain whose per­for­mance and reac­tion time are declin­ing: That is a harsh real­i­ty of grow­ing older.

But new research shows that brain shrink­age is less pro­nounced in old­er folks whose diets [Read more…] about The Mediter­ranean Diet seen to sub­stan­tial­ly reduce brain shrink­age among old­er adults

Top 10 Quotes on Lifelong Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis (and a Call to eBook Readers)

by

You may have  noticed that Amazon.com is shar­ing aggre­gat­ed data on how ebook read­ers inter­act with the books they are read­ing. For exam­ple, the “Pop­u­lar High­lights” sec­tion (towards the bot­tom of our Kin­dle book page) ranks the Top 10 sen­tences that Kin­dle read­ers have high­light­ed and shared while read­ing The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp (April 2009; 182 pages; ranked #1 in Kin­dle Store’s Pre­ven­tive Med­i­cine section).

This infor­ma­tion is invalu­able to authors and pub­lish­ers — as you can imag­ine, we’ll make sure to not only main­tain but to elab­o­rate on these top­ics as we pre­pare future edi­tions of the book.

So, what are so far the Top Ten Quotes on Life­long Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and Neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, [Read more…] about Top 10 Quotes on Life­long Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and Neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (and a Call to eBook Readers)

December Update: Wishing You and Yours a Very Brain-Fit Decade

by

How can we help younger gen­er­a­tions find the right path to life­long brain health and per­for­mance — espe­cial­ly as they will live longer, and in more dynam­ic, com­plex envi­ron­ments? We cre­at­ed the Brain Health across the Lifes­pan series to curate reli­able sources of infor­ma­tion, and here you can  check out  the Top 10 Resources to Bet­ter Under­stand the Teenage Brain.

Wish­ing you and your fam­i­ly a very brain-fit decade…please enjoy the Decem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly eNewslet­ter: [Read more…] about Decem­ber Update: Wish­ing You and Yours a Very Brain-Fit Decade

Memory Training Reduces Brain Atrophy

by

Numer­ous stud­ies show ben­e­fits of cog­ni­tive train­ing in old­er adults, despite a recent study ques­tion­ing their valid­i­ty. The debate on the effects of spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions is not settled.

A find­ing that researchers do seem to agree on is that aging is accom­pa­nied by brain and cog­ni­tive decline. These reduc­tions seem to be mod­i­fi­able through cog­ni­tive and phys­i­cal exer­cise. In this vein, our lab recent­ly demon­strat­ed that old­er adults involved in an 8‑week mem­o­ry train­ing pro­gram show less brain atro­phy. This gives some hope for old­er adults won­der­ing whether their train­ing efforts are real­ly worth­while. [Read more…] about Mem­o­ry Train­ing Reduces Brain Atrophy

Minding the Aging Brain

by

Cog­ni­tive train­ing (the basis for what we call “brain fit­ness” these days) has a wide array of appli­ca­tions. The most recentneurons one, which is cap­tur­ing pub­lic’s imag­i­na­tion, monop­o­liz­ing media cov­er­age, and cre­at­ing cer­tain con­fu­sion, is Healthy Brain Aging. We are for­tu­nate to have Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man, one of our new Expert Con­trib­u­tors, offer today his great voice to this con­ver­sa­tion. Enjoy!

- Alvaro
—————————

Mind­ing the Aging Brain

– By Joshua R. Stein­er­man, M.D.

Sci­en­tists, philoso­phers, artists, and experts from all fields of human endeav­or lament: it ain’t easy get­ting old­er. It? Do they refer to frailty and dis­abil­i­ty? To bod­i­ly dis­ease? To life at its essence?

It’s all in your head

The mind is not set in stone, but it is encased by bone. It’s real­ly all about the brain, the hyphen in the mind-body conun­drum. That squishy gray neu­ronal jun­gle is the inter­face between inter­nal life and envi­ron­men­tal sen­sa­tions and stim­u­la­tion. As expect­ed, the brain shows signs of aging just as a wrin­kled brow, a stooped pos­ture, or an arthrit­ic fin­ger might. The most com­mon brain changes observed in aging and in age-asso­ci­at­ed neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­ease include:

[Read more…] about Mind­ing the Aging Brain