Using brain games to delay dementia

Researchers at Queen's University Belfast have developed an application to discover the true effectiveness of brain training exercises in 50-plus people.
The Brain Jog application, which is available to download free for iPhone, iPod or iPad, is the product of 18 months of work by researchers at Queen's School of Music and Sonic Arts to find out what the over 50's are looking for in a brain training app.
The researchers are encouraging as many people as possible to download and use the application. During the process, users will be asked to give feedback on their experience of playing the game.
Using this information to determine what makes a good puzzle experience, the research team will continuously improve and adapt the games to make them as user friendly as possible-thereby maximising the number of people who play on a regular, long-term basis.
In the next stage of the project, the researchers hope to track the experience and performance of these long-term players to help clarify the effects of regular brain training on ageing minds.
Lead researcher Donal O'Brien of the Queen's Sonic Arts Research Centre said: "Brain Jog consists of four enjoyable mini games specifically designed to test and improve four areas - spatial ability, memory, mathematical ability and verbal fluency."
"This is achieved through problem solving, puzzles and reverse arithmetic, allowing users to be challenged in an engaging manner, and improve their performance with regular practice," he said.
He added, "By downloading this app, you can help us create a fantastic game experience for those over 50 and bring us one step closer to finding out whether or not brain training can help prevent cognitive decline and dementia.
"Plans are in place for a future study on dementia prevention using the app; but before that can happen, people of all ages are encouraged to get downloading and have fun while providing vital information to our researchers and keeping their brain active."

A fit heart slows down brain ageing

Researchers at Boston University found that healthy people with sluggish hearts that pumped out less blood had “older” brains that could raise their risk of dementia.

The team looked at 1,500 people and observed that the brain shrinks as it ages, but a poor cardiac output ages the brain by nearly two years on average.

According to the researchers, the link was not only seen in elderly people with heart disease, but also found in younger people in their 30s who did not have cardiac problems.

Dr Angela Jefferson, who led the study, said: “The observation that nearly a third of the entire sample has low cardiac index and that lower cardiac index is related to smaller brain volume is concerning and requires further study.”

The participants with smaller brain volumes on MRI did not show obvious clinical signs of reduced brain function.

But the researchers said the shrinkage may be an early sign that something is wrong. More severe shrinkage or atrophy occurs with dementia.

Dr Jefferson said there were several theories for why reduced cardiac index — how much blood the heart pumps out relative to body size — might affect brain health.

For example, a lower volume of blood pumping from the heart might reduce flow to the brain, providing less oxygen and fewer nutrients needed for brain cells.

However, the researchers said more research is required to better understand the links between cardiovascular disease and brain structure and function.

“It is too early to dole out health advice based on this one finding but it does suggest that heart and brain health go hand in hand,” she said.

The study has been appeared in the journal Circulation. 

So what do you do to keep your heart healthy? I think you already know what to do about that so just do more of it!

Carry on surfing

We have posted on this topic before but there is now additional evidence that clearly shows that web surfing materially impacts our brain in a positive way.

The researchers worked with 24 men and women aged between 55 and 78. Half of them had used the internet a lot; the others had little experience.

At the start of the research, they were asked to conduct a series of internet searches while their brains were scanned using a technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This measures changes in blood flow around the brain to work out which parts are the most and least active.

After the initial scan, participants went home and used the internet to carry out specified tasks for an hour a day at least seven times over the following fortnight. Then they had a second brain scan, again while searching the internet.

The impact began immediately, with the first scan demonstrating brain activity in regions controlling language, reading, memory and vision.

By the time of the second scan, however, the activated areas had spread to include the frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, areas known to be important in working memory and decision-making. The researchers suggest internet searching stimulates brain cells and pathways, making them more active.

“Searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults,” said Teena Moody, one of the researchers who will be presenting this work at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago tomorrow.

It has long been known that as people age, their brain functions and abilities also change. In many respects these changes are beneficial — verbal and social skills tend to improve until at least late middle age, for example. In other areas there can be declines. One of the best known is mathematics, as shown by the number of mathematicians and physicists who do their best work early and then struggle to match their youthful performances.

In Britain around 700,000 people suffer from dementia, a condition in which so much of the brain has died that function is severely impaired.

The researchers argue that brains are similar to muscles, in that the more they are exercised, the healthier they become. So, activities such as internet use, reading and socialising can slow or reverse normal age-related declines.

Interestingly they reckon that internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading. So now you know! Carry on surfing!