Brain games and training – the changing face of brain health field

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 0
Lumosity

Lumosity (Photo credit: Gustavo da Cunha Pimenta)

The rise of Brain Games and Brain Training

The brain game and training industry has grown dramatically over the last several years, led by companies such as lumosity and fitbrains. Now, the brain game / training field makes quite strong claims on what training can do for brain health, but the scientific evidence might not be there yet, but this doesn’t mean it will not come. However, I would like to remind everyone that like people trying to lose weight, or become healthier in general, you must combine exercise with healthy eating habits/diet. I will have much more to say about combining the correct diet with ‘brain exercising’ like programs to make your brain healthier (including increasing your memory and concentration ability, along with reducing your chances of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease) in the near future on this blog.

Switch to Mobile Brain Training / Games

At the same time as the growth of the brain game / traibning market  there has been a growing shift from the desktop/laptop toward mobile devices. So it would follow that we would expect that brain games would move toward the mobile space. And many of you might remember one of the pioneers in the brain game field, nintendo’s brain age (first release: April 17, 2006) was for nintendo’s mobile platform.

While Nintendo’s dominance of brain games has faded the two leading opponents appear to be Luminosity and the Vancouver based fit brains.

 A few impressive numbers:

Lumosity has 35 million members, but even more impressive they are adding 100,000 new members each day. Wow. That would equate to 36 million new members over the next year. Talk about the classic hockey stick startup growth pattern.

So how can fitbrains try to compete against such a juggernaut? By riding the shift to mobile. Fitbrains recently announced 1.5 million downloads of their mobile app in a 2 month time period. And they hope to compete based on a better mobile experience compared to lumosity.

It only make sense to me with people now spending as much time on their mobile devices as their normal computers that whoever provides the best mobile experience will see the greatest growth. Like the move of traditional games to mobile, where you can play when you have a few spare moments, be it waiting in line, or on the bus, I see the greatest use of brain games / training happening on our mobile devices.

So my question to all of you is do you use brain games / training and have you tried the mobile versions?

If you stay tuned to this blog I will tell you how you can maximize the brain health benefits of this type of brain training by combining it with a great brain health food program.

 

 

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brain fitness, brain hack, brain health

What is the age barrier to genius – Is it only accomplished by the young?

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 2

Is the age of 30 the cut off for genius?

The great genius Einstein once said, “A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so.” However, new research might prove the great Einstein wrong, and that nowadays more and more of the genius level accomplishment are not reached until far later in life.

Shanghai 10
Creative Commons License photo credit: D Johnston

We have all read the pithy quotes about the power of youth. “Don’t trust anyone over 30,”: The mathematician G. H Hardy spoke of math being: a “young man’s game”, so anyone with a talent for mathematics should develop and use that talent while they are young, before their ability to create original mathematics starts to decline in middle age.

A more recent quote comes from the biologist Michael Rose: “….there’s probably not much point in having mathematicians live past the age of 40, or scientists live past the age of 50. Both mathematicians and scientists do very little that’s important past those ages.”

But we have all likely read great novels by authors well into their 50s. So really what is the age barrier for genius?

The 10,000 hour rule

An additional problem with the idea that all genius level thinking can only be accomplished by the young is that this line of thinking is in somewhat contrast with the notion of the 10,000 hour rule (Anders Ericsson, Malcolm Gladwell), which suggest that to reach ‘mastery’ of a subject you need to put in 10,000 hours. Now 10,000 hours can be accumulated before the age of 30, but what about the various endeavours that are not even started until we are in our mid 20s – such as becoming a surgeon, or a scientist?

General physical and mental performance as we age

Previously I have discussed both physical performance changes the occur with aging, but also mental ability over our lifetimes, which surprisingly for many tasks does not peak until around the age of 53.  I also went into details of the potential underlying neurobiology behind this relatively late peak in mental performance for some tasks.

But some general cognitive function tests that might peak in many of us at 53 is not in the same category of what we think of a genius thinking.

 New study help shed light on later in life peak performance

A new study has found that the new peak is 48 years old. Turning the notion that genius level performance can only be accomplished by the young the research found the exact opposite results.

To investigate this notion further, researchers analyzed 525 Nobel Prizes given in physics, chemistry and medicine from 1901 to 2008. They compared how the age of peak creativity, measured by the average age at which Nobel laureates did their prize-winning work, varied between fields and changed over time within fields.

Today, the average age at which physicists do their Nobel Prize-winning work is 48. Very little breakthrough work is done by physicists under 30.

Why is there this total reversal of the popular notion that all great scientific work is done before middle age?

The growth in the knowledge base of each scientific field.

In our current knowledge explosion times it takes a person far longer to consume the field of knowledge of a particular subject matter compared to say 1905. As with all information, and maybe even more in the science fields, information is doubling every 18 or so months. So if you compare the information known about a particular field in 1905 to 2011, well there are orders of magnitude differences.

And you can see from the results of the study that in earlier times the peak ability did occur earlier.

The investigators found that great scientific achievement before age 30 was indeed common in all disciplines before 1905. About two-thirds of winners in these fields did their prize-winning work before age 40, and about 20 percent did it before 30.

Now a human can only consume so much information per day, and with the huge amount of information that has been published in all the different scientific fields, it is not possible for an individual to know everything in their field, and they probably knows a smaller percentage of their field compared to their compatriots from earlier times. And so even to get a reasonable accumulation of knowledge in a person chosen field of interest it takes a considerable amount of time.

So maybe the 10,000 hour rule is even more true in our current times, especially in information rich fields, such as the sciences.

A final quote from the article sums up things nicely:

“The image of the brilliant young scientist who makes critical breakthroughs in science is increasingly outdated, at least in these three disciplines,” Weinberg said. “Today, the average age at which physicists do their Nobel Prize-winning work is 48. Very little breakthrough work is done by physicists under 30.”

So if the peak is at 48 for physicists there has to be a bell like curve to this, suggesting that Nobel prize winning work is being done considerably past the age of 48. I would also be interested in a study examining what we typically think of more creative endeavours such as writing, painting and composing music.

Do you think you have reached your peak ability yet?

10000 hours, aging, brain health, longevity

Chemo Brain, Chemo Fog, in Breast Cancer Patients is Real

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 1

Chemo Fog, or chemo brain is reported by many cancer patients, but doctors tend to ignore it since they put most of their concentration of treating the cancer. Additionally this general cognitive dysfunction can last long after the the patient has stopped cancer treatment.

But finally this important topic is getting addressed:

Many cancer survivors report feeling they’ve lost some mental sharpness following treatment. This common phenomenon has come to be known as “chemo brain” or “chemo fog,” which is somewhat misleading because it also occurs in people who have not undergone chemotherapy.

Although recent studies have shown that up to 75% of cancer survivors do indeed experience altered mental function — and that these changes can last for five years or longer — doctors often downplay complaints about chemo fog.

This new study reported it Times point out the details of what they found.

In a new study published this week in the Archives of Neurology, Kesler and her colleagues provide more evidence that the phenomenon is real. Using brain scans, the researchers found that breast-cancer survivors show changes in key aspects of mental function that can translate to real-world difficulties. And these changes were particularly marked in women who had undergone chemotherapy.

Well, know that we know it is real – what can we do to prevent it, or improve the recovery?  That has not been addressed yet, but the first step is facing up to the facts that this is a real problem – and we need to find better options.

 

 

cancer

Alzheimer’s disease: omega-3 and exercise – the complexity of treatment

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 2
Diagram of the brain of a person with Alzheime...

Image via Wikipedia

Fish and/or exercise to help Alzheimer’s disease?

Alzheimer’s disease background:

Alzheimer’s disease is the leading neurodegenerative dementia disorder. In most cases Alzheimer’s does not appear until after the age of 60, but there is an early onset form. It is estimated that 5.1 million Americans have Alzheimer’s. With about 36 million American’s in the 60+ age group the numbers suggest that 1 in 7 people above the age of 60 develop Alzheimer’s disease, but the official numbers from a 2010 report states 1 in 8 (13%) over 65 years old have Alzheimer’s. It is estimated over the next 20 years we will see a 50% increase in the number of people with this disease.

There have been 858 clinical trials testing out more than 400 pharmaceutical treatments (wiki). While there is a great deal of research currently going on the effectiveness of the treatment options are limited. According to the National Institute of Aging these are the current options:

Four medications are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat Alzheimer’s. Donepezil (Aricept®), rivastigmine (Exelon®), and galantamine (Razadyne®) are used to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer’s (donepezil can be used for severe Alzheimer’s as well). Memantine (Namenda®) is used to treat moderate to severe Alzheimer’s. These drugs work by regulating neurotransmitters (the chemicals that transmit messages between neurons). They may help maintain thinking, memory, and speaking skills, and help with certain behavioral problems. However, these drugs don’t change the underlying disease process and may help only for a few months to a few years.

While this is not encouraging there is continued hope as researchers try to find new and better options.

Omega-3 for Alzheimer’s disease?

Omega-3 has been studied previously in Alzheimer’s disease and a recent clinical trial with DHA, one component of omega-3, failed to provide improvements for patients. But work continues to explore omega-3 as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s.

Differential genetics influence the propensity for Alzheimer’s and may underlie response to various treatments.

One risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease is the particular version of the APOE gene you inherit. More specifically, if you have the APOE ε4 (APOE4) allele you have a higher risk of developing the disease. Most people have the APOE3 allele, which lowers the risk of the disease. But having APOE4 doesn’t mean you will develop the disease and on the other hand those with APOE3 can still be stricken with Alzheimer’s.

Omega-3 for Alzheimer’s with the APOE4 version

A report of an unreleased study indicates that in a mouse model a diet high omega-3 and low in cholesterol significantly reduced the symptoms in mice carrying the APOE4 gene.

Exercise and Alzheimer’s disease

Previous work in animal models indicate that exercise can protect against Alzhiemer’s, and the general consensus in humans is that exercise can help ward off Alzheimer’s disease but proper randomized clinical trials to examine if exercise can be effective in people already diagnosed with the disease are ongoing.

Exercise for Alzheimer’s with the APOE4 version

Exercise as we discussed above can possibly help with Alzheimer’s disease but what about in a model examining APOE4.

The same upublished report informs us that an enriched environment that including a running wheel helped the mice that carried the ‘good’ versions of APOE. However, in the mice with the unfavorable APOE4 exercise had a negative effect in terms of Alzheimer’s progression. In the good APOE version mice exercise/enriched environment increased neuronal connections, but in the APOE4 the same treatment caused the death of neurons.

The senior author on the paper states in this way:

Extrapolating this to the human population, individuals with the bad APOE4 gene are more susceptible to stress caused by an environment that stimulates their brain,” says Prof. Michaelson.

Complexity of treating Alzheimer’s disease (and other medical conditions)

Normally, I don’t write about unpublished results but I found these results interesting because over the last year I have seen several similar results. A particular intervention or treatment might help one population, but actually end up being detrimental for another.

I am a big proponent of the power of exercise and an enriched environment to help protect your brain health, but here is a possible example where things aren’t always so simple.

Take home message:

For Alzheimer’s disease it is possible that a good diet can overcome bad genetics

Omega-3 (fish) may help those Alzheimer’s patients with the APOE4 allele (but a recent clinical trial using DHA did not find any positive effects – but they did not separate the patients based on this gene). Also remember the positive results of omega-3 was found in a genetic mouse model of the disease and needs to be tested clinically.

Exercise which is good for your overall and brain health might not be a good option for those already with Alzheimer’s disease and the APOE4 allele. What would be interesting is to study if exercise done in APOE4 mice (and/or humans) before the onset of Alzheimer’s helps prevent the start of the disease.

Life and biology is complex, though this statement does not help people with Alzheimer’s disease,or their loved ones.

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aging, brain health, enriched environment, exercise, healthy diet, longevity

Weekend’s Better Brain Health Breakfast #7: Friends, Lovers, Puzzles, and Music

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 1
A small drum circle at Eeyore's Birthday Party...

Image via Wikipedia

The power of love and friends for your health

Staying married or good social connections can help you live longer are covered in this Washington post article. I have blogged on how social interactions can improve your health in a previous post. One interesting piece of data from the Washington post article is that social connectedness had as much health benefits as stopping smoking, and was more than what you would receive from exercise.

Cryptic puzzles for better metacognition

A few weeks ago we talked about the power of puzzles to widen our minds and how problems can bring out our playfulness. Now over at Sharpbrains there is an interesting post about how cryptic crossword puzzles might be better for us than the normal general knowledge crossword puzzles by enhancing our metacognition ability.

Compared to general knowl­edge cross­words, cryptic cross­words can be solved many different ways, therefore attempting cryptic cross­words is similar to attempting new challenging cognitive activities each time.

Puzzles, in whatever form, would be consider one type of brain training which is a growing field. One of brain training’s goals is to help reduce our cognitive decline as we age.

Brain training or social activities ?

Another very interesting post over at BrainBlogger offers some interesting perspective on brain training. The post covers a big review paper that examined 24 trials on various brain training interventions. They found that there is not strong evidence for the use of cognitive training programs for the elderly compared to other activities for people 60 and over.

Now I am guessing that Alvaro from Sharpbrains might argue with this conclusion or mention that there hasn’t been enough research on this topic to make any definitive statement (hoping I am not putting too many words in his mouth by saying this).

However, what is interesting about the results reported by BrainBlogger is that ‘natural activities’ that engage the brain or social activities can work as well as official brain training programs.

The good news is that stimulating your brain for cognitive improvement really does make a difference, whether you use a professional (training) program or natural activities that stimulate the brain. A good deal of research has looked at the question of natural activities that improve or maintain cognitive abilities in older persons, and the results encourage us to be engaged in life, especially social activities. Research on involvement in religion suggests that it is primarily the social aspect that improves longevity. This is probalby true for cognition and memory as well.

Does music increase our socialness?

Over at ScienceNews there is very nice article on the diverse powers of music on our lives and brain. I wrote a piece on how musical training can increase your brain’s gray matter. Among the many other effects music has on the brain discussed in the ScienceNews piece it was something right at the end I found most interesting. Researchers think that one vital reason music has so much influence on making us feel happy is because it helps forge social bonds.

Studies show that listening to music stimulates brain areas specialized for imitation and empathy that contain what researchers call mirror neurons. These brain circuits, first described in monkeys, act like mirrors in the mind, reflecting others’ actions and intentions as if they were one’s own. The neurons allow you to feel loved ones’ pain or simulate their actions, even if only in your mind….

Because music has historically brought people together to sing, dance and celebrate rituals, it can make people feel like they are in a social interaction, he says. Until recently, whenever people heard music, they would also see feet tapping, hands drumming or instruments being strummed, plucked or hit.

Listening to music, dancing, and singing together would definitely qualify as one the ‘natural activities’ that actively engages the brain (that we discussed above) and is also very social.

Summary:

Play with cryptic puzzles to engage a larger set of your brain’s functions. For better long term health be in love and have strong social connections. Keep your brain active to fight off the decline of your brain functions, and again engage in social activities. And one way to help forge these social connections is listening to music together – go to listen to live music: play, sing, and dance.

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brain fitness, brain health, enriched environment, Weekend's Better Brain Health Breakfast

Are there differences between physical and cognitive aging?

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 1
Marathon-Run By

Image by Dr.DeNo via Flickr

Does physical decline directly mirror cognitive decline?

In a previous post I pointed out how after the age of 25 the brain is losing a proportion of its mass. But when we examined various cognitive measurements we observe that the peak for some cognitive abilities do not occur until we reach our 50′s.

What about physical working capacity aging?

There are many ways we could examine physical aging, but for convenience reason we can using running times since there are large data sets for this physical parameter. We could obviously use jumping distance, or how quickly we can dig a hole in the ground but the data set for these are limited. And another reason to use running is that is well studied for the purpose of trying to age grade races. The reason these tables were developed (which took a considerable about of work and data crunching) were to enable athletes of different ages to compare their ability. These tables are used widely for Master athletics.

So here are a couple graphs for the half-marathon to use as a measurement for working capacity as we age.

In females the fastest times occur between the ages of 20 to 34ish, and then start to rise. From this you could say that after the age of 35 females physical running ability starts to decline (on average – there will always be exceptions) (for the record – the current world record in the half-marathon for females is 66 minutes and 25 seconds). And roughly speaking for every decade there is an increase of 8 – 10 minutes to the running time, which equates to approximately 12% increase in time.

For the men we see similar trends. The world record of 58:23, which according to the graph lines could occur between the age of 18 – 37. And again we see this steady rise after this time point. Taking the age bracket of 40 to 50 we again observe this approximate 8-10 minutes increase (13 -17%) in time over the decade period. And this appears like a fairly flat line up to about the age of 75, and then there is a sharp decline (increase of time) of performance.

Now there is a slight difference in rate of curve between the males and females, but this likely reflects cultural influences that are different between the current 20 -35 year old females compared to the 60 and above. And I think over the coming years we will see that the curves of the males and females will become very similar.

And I think these physical results would agree with what most of us have observed in life. Physical working capacity starts to deteriorate as people near 40 years old.

Is there a difference between physical performance aging and mental aging?

This is the bigger question, and the one we are interested in for today’s post.  If you compare the first graph on cognitive ability changes over different ages to the half marathon abilities we notice some differences. Physical working capacity starts to drop off at 37-40, but for many of the cognitive functions the drop does not occur until mid-50′s.

There appears to be 15 to 20 year differences between work capacity aging and cognitive aging.

What I wonder, and would be interesting to test, is are the two related at the individual level? As in if we took a sample of people and recorded their work capacity every year or so along with their mental capacity would we see a 15 to 20 year lag between the drop of physical capacity and mental ability?

Obviously, there are going to be individual differences of when physical ability starts to decline, and at what rate. Could we use the physical capacity measurements to predict mental decline, and would it occur at the same rate, just 15-20 years delayed for each individual?

There is evidence suggesting that physical and mental decline are correlated in general, but I will leave that for another post.

Take home message:

Physical working capacity starts to decline as we near 40 years of age (at least for the half-marathon). But our cognitive ability has a considerably delayed decline compared to our physical capacity (15 – 20 year difference). The two might be related?

Even if they are not related do what you can to prevent the loss of both your physical and mental capacity. Keep active – exercise and keep your brain fully engaged in whatever interests you – learn new things, explore new worlds.

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aging, brain health, cognitive function, exercise

Can mindful meditation reverse brain aging?

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 0
Meditation Begins at Birth

Image by premasagar via Flickr

Meditation for brain health

As we age our brain slowly starts shrinking (and this starts by the age of 25), can we do anything to help slow or reverse this process? Could something as relaxing as meditation help stop the loss of your brain mass?

A few days ago I told you about research that indicated that walking 40 minutes a day 3 days a week (for 1 year) reversed brain aging in subjects over 55.

The study we will discuss today used 8 weeks of meditative training and practice and the researchers examined the size of various brain regions (using a brain scan) and compared the meditators versus a control group at the end of the 8 week time period, compared to their results before the experiment started.

How they meditated:

Subjects received a weekly 2.5 hour training session in mindfulness mediation, and during week 6 a full day session (6.5 hours). You might ask what is mindfulness mediation? The researchers described it this way:

Formal mindfulness training exercises aim at developing the capacity for mindfulness (awareness of present-moment experiences with a compassionate, non-judgmental  stance)  and  include  a  body  scan, mindful yoga, and sitting meditation.

The mindfulness experimental group was also instructed to try to enter a mindfulness state while doing some daily activities like washing the dishes, eating, walking, or showering. Additionally, the mindfulness subjects received a 45 minute guided meditative audio to assist in their meditation.

However, the actual average time spent doing their mindfulness homework (meditation) was 27 minutes a day. So even if you add in the weekly 2.5 hour training, and the 6.5 hour one time whole day training you come up with spending on average 55 minutes a day on mindfulness. You can take this as their time commitment for this program.

Meditation Results:

Similar to the walking study they scanned all of the subject’s brains before the start of this experiment and again at the end (in this case 8 weeks). What the researchers found was that the mindfulness group had a greater brain volume change than the control group:

You can see in these four brain regions depicted in the graphs above the mindfulness trained group have greater positive changes in their selected brain volumes compared to the control group.

You might also notice that in the control group not all of these brain regions shrank as you might have thought based on the previous study we discussed. But compared to the study we talked about last week these subjects were younger (38 vs in the walking study an average age of 67) and the time period was shorter (8 weeks vs 1 year).

In the walking study they found a difference in the hippocampus size which is important for memory formation. This mindfulness study also examined this important region and found a difference between the groups for the left hippocampus, with the mindfulness group displaying better results.

Take home message about meditation and brain aging:

Mindfulness meditation appears to change the volume of several brain regions after just 8 weeks of meditation. What is really interesting is that this occurs in fairly young people (average age 38).

Last week we talked about how 40 minutes of walking 3 days a week for 1 year also has a very nice effect on hippocampus brain size in older subjects (average age 67), it reversed the normal shrinkage of this brain region which occurs as we age.

So now we have at least two techniques we can use to help to reduce the loss of age related loss of your brain. Why not use both? Try exercising several times a week, and add a daily, or near daily, mindful meditation. What do you got to lose – maybe your brain matter if you don’t do something about it.

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aging, brain fitness, brain hack, brain health

Reverse your brain aging: How to take 2 years off your brain age within 1 year

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 5

Reverse the brain aging process

Wouldn’t it be great to reverse the age accumulated damage to your brain, stop the shrinking of your brain? Sound like marketing hype, but there is not much to sell as what does this brain ‘repair’ is simple exercise – walking (aerobic exercise).

I previously posted about how the brain losses about 2 grams per year after the age of 25.

Exercise reverses brain shrinkage

Researchers took a group of subjects 55 or older who were not regularly exercising at the time. The control group stretched and toned, while the experimental group walked 40 minutes a day for 3 days a week. So this is not a overly strenuous exercise routine, this is something most people should be able to perform. By the end of the experiment the walking group averaged about 15 minutes a miles, which is 4 miles per hour. A nice brisk pace.

The main findings were observed in the hippocampus, which is important for memory formation and recall. The control group which stretched and toned had a 1.4% decrease in hippocampus size. But the 3 days a week walking group saw an increase of their hippocampus size by 2%.

So the control group had the continued aged induced shrinking of the brain, and in this particular case the vital hippcampal brain structure. And the walking group not only had no similar shrinkage but an actual increase in size – which is quite amazing.

Researchers said the walking group effectively reverse the age-related volume loss by 1-2 years.

Did the reversal of brain volume loss have any functional affects on memory?

Reassuringly, the reversing of the hippocampus shrinkage was accompanied with an improvement in memory function. Therefore, exercise improved both the morphology of the brain but also a real life functional outcome such as memory. You couldn’t ask for much more.

Take home message:

Get out there and exercise, keep active. Something as simple and easy as walking (aerobic exercise) 3 times a week can help reverse the age related shrinking of your brain. What would a more extensive exercise program do?

See also:

walking to prevent memory loss

walking book club

runners are less likely to die

aging, brain fitness, brain hack, brain health

Weekend’s Better Brain Health Breakfast # 7: Beauty-Brains, Schmoozing, Blueberries

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 1
NEW YORK - MARCH 11: (FILE PHOTO) Model Gisele...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Are good looking people also smarter?

Would this be prove how fair the world is if on average the best looking people are also smarter? According to this one study that followed 17,419 from childhood through young  adulthood did find this exact relationship:

‘Physical attractiveness is significantly positively associated withgeneral intelligence, both with and without controls for social class, body size and health,’ says Satoshi Kanazawa, a researcher at the London School of Economics.‘The association between attractiveness and generalintelligence is also stronger among men than women.’

A similar study done in America found the same relationship between attractiveness and intelligence. The actual numbers from the British study are as follows:

The study found that in Britain, women who are physically attractive have IQ’s 11.4 points higher than the average, while handsome men have an increased IQ of 13.6 points.

The world is truly cruel and unfair :) . Not only are attractive people smarter just looking at these attractive people is good for your brains.

Schmoozing you way to more money:

Over at neuroscience marketing they report on a study that found that people are money likely to share money with people they have casually talked to compared to ones they didn’t.

..researcher Al Roth tried an interesting twist on the Ultimatum game – he had the subjects talk face-to-face before playing. Amazingly, even when the subjects were told not to discuss the game and chatted about random topics, they were far more likely to successfuly split the money. With the conversation, the percent of “fair” offers rose to 83%, and a mere 5% of the games resulted in failure.

But you could say it is no surprise that even the minor acquaintance of a person over a quick conversation alters how much we are likely to share with them – be it money or food. So don’t be shy talk to strangers, or someone in your office building that you see everyday but never actual struck up a conversation with.

Additionally, being social is good for your brain health.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if those beautiful and smart people are also better and more natural at schmoozing :) (by the way smiling is good for your health and the recipient of your smile)

Want to reduce your chances of high blood pressure naturally – try blueberries:

Blueberries are good for our health at many levels (including one study that indicates in could increase your longevity) but new research indicates it can also reduce blood pressure (via futurepundit). People who ate at least one serving of blueberries per week their chances of developing high blood pressure was  reduced by 10% compared to those that didn’t.

Simple advice for the week – eat some blueberries.

Picking up a stone – and what it tells us about our brain and evolution:

We have all leaned over to pick up one of the stones in front of us to throw – be it at a telephone poll or some other convenient target. What makes us choose one stone over another to throw? There is a well known illusion that if we have two objects of equal weight we ‘feel’ like the larger one is lighter. Now researchers think this illusion is fundamental to our high skill in throwing objects, which was fundamental for our hunting prowess.

“It was not just language. It was language and throwing that led to the survival of Homo sapiens, and we are now beginning to gain some understanding of how these abilities are rapidly acquired by members of our species.”

Bingham and Qin Zhu, lead author of the study and assistant professor at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, consider throwing and language in concert, because both require extremely well-coordinated timing and motor skills, which are facilitated by two uniquely developed brain structures — the cerebellum and posterior parietal cortex.

The researchers have found that perceptual biases in perception of auditory signals are important for language development and Bingham and Zhu wondered if the size-weight illusion would be important for throwing development.

Another way of stating the size-weight illusion is that for someone to perceive that two objects — one larger than the other — weigh the same, the larger object must weigh significantly more than the smaller object. Their study findings show that skilled throwers use this illusion of ‘equal felt’ heaviness to select objects that they are able to throw to the farthest, maximum distance. This, says Bingham, suggests the phenomenon is not actually an illusion but instead a “highly useful and accurate perception.”

Hence, maybe these evolved biases/illusions helped up develop language and throwing ability. Strange – but possible.

Have a healthy and fun weekend.

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brain health, Uncategorized, Weekend's Better Brain Health Breakfast

How to open your mind and put it in a playful, amused state

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Ward Plunet | Permalink 2

Do you want to play? Do you want a simple brain hack to make you playful, increase your amusement, make you laugh inside?

In today’s world we might solve puzzles mostly for challenge, but it is likely that these same puzzle solving strategies were important for survival in our distance past, and therefore part of our evolutionary developmental pattern.

You could call puzzle solving ‘the creative spark’ which we would have used around the campfire, and maybe to first figure out how to start fires ourselves.

Yesterday, I talked about how puzzle and problems are sometimes broken down into two categories. Today we explore how our brain reacts to puzzles – especially to those type of puzzles that require an out-of-the box insight to solve (many puzzle have some of this component in them).

Research in Puzzle solving

Interestingly,  research found that if you had been amused you were better at making the leap and solving certain types of problems (out-of-the-box insight type of puzzle/problems). How they tested this was comparing the ability to solve puzzles after watching a short comedy routine, a boring video (I think we can all think of examples), or scary video. Subjects were more likely to have insight and solve the problem after watching the comedy routine.

“Dr. Beeman and Dr. Subramaniam had college students solve word-association puzzles after watching a short video of a stand-up routine by Robin Williams. The students solved more of the puzzles over all, and significantly more by sudden insight, compared with when they’d seen a scary or boring video beforehand.”

“What we think is happening….is that the humor, this positive mood, is lowering the brain’s threshold for detecting weaker or more remote connections” to solve puzzles.

Therefore, if you are having difficulties of making the leap and coming up with the insight to solve the problem try lowering your brain’s threshold by watch something that makes you laugh – open your mind.

Does it work in reverse?

If putting us into laughing state of mind helps us solve puzzles then do playing with puzzles put us into a happy-laughing state? Previous research indicates that the puzzle solving can release dopamine – the main reward neurotransmitter in the brain – which would ring our little inner Skinner bell after we solve the problem. What happens in our brain before we figure out the puzzle, before we even start the puzzle?

“The very idea of doing a crossword or a Sudoku puzzle typically shifts the brain into an open, playful state that is itself a pleasing escape…”

An open, playful state sounds like a delightful state of mind. So if you want to increase your openness and playfulness try solving some type of puzzle, riddle, or problem.

Take home message:

Puzzle and problem challenge and stimulate the brain and is good for our brain health by keeping it active and flexible. But an added bonus, and maybe why we enjoy puzzles so much, is they can put us in an amused state of mind. Our brain becomes more open and playful.

Puzzles can come in many forms: crosswords, sudoku, picture puzzles, riddles, math, word, SAT, logic, some computer games, and life itself – go enjoy them.

Hope all of you have a playful weekend.

What we think is happening
brain hack, brain health