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+…
Category: enriched environment
brain fitness, brain health, enriched environment, Weekend's Better Brain Health Breakfast
Weekend’s Better Brain Health Breakfast #7: Friends, Lovers, Puzzles, and Music
by Ward Plunet • • 1 Comment
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…
brain health, enriched environment
Enriched environment helps many aspects of brain health
by Ward Plunet • • 0 Comments
improve your brain health with an enriched environment
brain health, enriched environment
Wo…! – and how it is good for you.
by Ward • • 2 Comments
Image via Wikipedia It is easy to get into an equilibrium – a stasis. The question is how to perturb the system to get of this this state? Wow — or something close to that. I might not even have the right word here. What I am looking for is when you are walking along…
brain fitness, brain hack, brain health, enriched environment
My head is going to explode with all this info said the university student
by Ward • • 12 Comments
Now I am sure most readers have experienced the situation of the above student lament – when you are studying so long and hard that it feels like your head is going to explode – well maybe it is because you are growing so much new brain mass. Who knew – learning is good for your…
brain hack, brain health, enriched environment, exercise
Can you teach an old dog new tricks – or at least juggling – and increase gray matter density in the brain ?
by Ward • • 2 Comments
Image via Wikipedia You might, or might not, be an old dog – but we all want to be able keep on learning and ‘growing’. Yesterday, I wrote about a couple papers that demonstrated how learning to juggle increased gray matter density in a particular region of the brain (middle temporal area of the visual…
brain hack, brain health, enriched environment, exercise
Learn juggling to increase your gray matter – but don’t stop
by Ward • • 4 Comments
Image via Wikipedia Maybe being a court jester is not all bad – you get to play music, which increases your brain’s gray matter and improves your general cognitive ability, and you get to entertain the court with your juggling skills, which you will find out, if you read the rest of this post, is…
brain fitness, brain health, enriched environment
Increase your brain’s gray matter with musical training
by Ward • • 5 Comments
American Pie by Don McLean (a classic American anthem). “Bye, bye Miss American Pie…. When the Jester sang for the King and Queen, In a coat he borrowed from James Dean, In a voice that came from you and me. Oh, and while the King was looking down, The Jester stol’ his thorny crown….” The…
brain fitness, brain health, enriched environment
How playing the court jester can improve your brain
by Ward • • 1 Comment
The court jester’s (harlequin) job was to entertain the court with his/her music and juggling abilities. The court members laughed at the jester (maybe not with him), but possibly the jester had the last laugh since his various entertaining endeavors possibly promoted in his brain greater plasticity and health. All this week I will discuss…
brain fitness, brain health, enriched environment, exercise
Exercise for healthy new neurons: even in middle age
by Ward • • 3 Comments
Here is a follow-up to my Monday post on the quick rebound from an exercise layoff in the important brain health protein brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). A new paper published in the Journal of Applied Physiology examined running, BDNF, trkB, neurogenesis (new neurons), and neurite outgrowth (branching of the new neurons) in middle age rodents.…