Latest US Study Finds Brain Training Linked to Decreased Risk of Alzheimer’s.

It’s a huge, 800 page study prepared for an NIH State-of-the-Science Conference “Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline:, but its findings are music to the ears of everyone over 50 who wants to keep a sharp, alert brain for the rest of their life. And who doesn’t!

Scientists, as you know, are very cautious about making promises but this is what they said:

“Of all the factors reviewed, including diet and dietary supplements, physical exercise, social engagement, and other leisure activities, only cognitive training was found to have a high level of evidence for being associated with a decreased risk of cognitive decline.”

This is fantastic news for Baby Boomers!

It means you don’t have to accept memory loss as a part of getting older.

You can do something about it!

‘Cognitive’ means brain and memory activities.

So, what the scientists are saying is this.

Although eating brain food, physical fitness and social activity are all really important,

‘only cognitive training was said to have a “high degree of evidence” in this report’.

These new scientific findings are of critical importance.

At 50+, you are confidently expecting to live a full and positive life, with plenty of time to enjoy the leisure activities you’ve promised yourself and your family during your busy earning years. You are entitled to those years – but more and more of us are being robbed of them through memory loss and Alzheimer’s.

But you can do something about that. Start today.

Sign up now for our FREE six-day Brain Tune course.

It will set you on the right path to brain fitness.

For further information, read lots of articles on this site, including  Nine Secrets of a Sharp Brain After 55 and Keep that Boomer Brain Growing

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at articles@brainandmemoryfoundation.org to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.

Train Your Brain

Have you already tried these brainteasers on Twitter?

If not, try them now before looking up the answers!

1. The words below are all anagrams of other words, the initial letters of which form an anagram of another word. What is the answer?

bruise warned please listen veined trance

2. Starting with HATE, change one letter at a time until you have the word LOVE. Each change leaves the other letters in their original places and must result in a proper word. What is the minimum number of steps required to achieve this change?

HATE …. …. ….

LOVE

3. If today is Friday, what is the day that follows the day that comes after the day that precedes the day before yesterday?

4. If you were to spell out the numbers in full, (One, Two, Three, etc), how far would you have to go until you found the letter ‘A’?

5. Another Word Ladder

Change ONE to TWO in seven steps, changing only one letter in each three-letter word.

6. When Bob is twice as old as he is now, he’ll be four times as old as he was six years ago. How old is Bob?

7. Make the following correct with one stroke of the pen: 101010 = 9.50

8. How can you combine eight 8’s to make 1000?

9. Tune up your brain! Can you find a single five-letter word which can be added to each of the following letters to form 5 six-letter words?

10. The maker doesn’t need it, the buyer doesn’t use it and the user uses it without knowing. What is it?

11. Show how one taken away from 19 can give you 20.

12. There are three light seitches downstairs which light up three bulbs in the attic. How can you find out which switch lights up which bulb with only one trip upstairs?

13. A Christmas brain teaser. If snow falls from the sky at the rate of one drop of snow per second, how many drops of snow will fall over one minute?

Come on, you can do it!

Answers: (Don’t look unless you have to!)

1. The answer is ‘ANSWER’: asleep, nectar, silent, wander, envied, rubies.

2. HATE, DATE, DOTE, DOVE, LOVE or HATE, LATE, LAVE, LOVE or HATE HAVE HOVE LOVE.

3. Thursday

4. 1000: one thousand. Unless you in the UK when 101 = one hundred And one.

5. OLE, ALE, AYE, DYE, DOE, TOE, TOO, TWO

6. Bob is twelve (12)

7. 10 T0 10

8. Here’s one way but you might find more? 8+8+8+88+888=1000

9. Bangle, Tangle, Jangle, Mangle, Dangle

10. A coffin!

11. Write 19 in Roman numerals – XIX. Take I away and you are left with XX.

12. Turn on one switch and wait a minute or two. Then turn it off and switch on another light. Go upstairs and you will see one light on, one is still warm to the touch and one is still cold. Now you know which is which!

13. 61 drops of snow. We start counting from the time the first snow drop falls and the moment of time is 0 seconds. At the moment of time of 1 second, we have two drops of snow, and so on. When the moment of time is 60 seconds, we will have had 61 drops of snow.

Avoid multi-tasking. It leads to stress and memory loss.

For weeks you’ve been cramming for this exam and you got up early this morning to make sure that you had remembered everything. A lot hangs on this test – your promotion, for one. You can feel the tension rising but say to yourself, “It’s just exam nerves – it’s good stress”, right? Then, when you look at the first question one that you’ve been expecting, your brain goes blank, the words don’t make sense, and you can’t remember a single fact to write down.

You want to get up and run right out of the exam room. When this happens, you are experiencing the “fight or flight response” that every human being has in cases of impending danger.

‘Fight or flight’ is an innate response and it’s a great instinct in its right place. When Fight or Flight kicks in, though, the brain slows down so that it can concentrate on protecting you. If you try to remember something when Fight or Flight is operating, you’ll forget – that’s why stress can cause memory loss.

Stress isn’t always a bad thing – we can all do with energy surges now and then.

In Fight or Flight, for instance, your body automatically starts a chain of reactions. Stress hormones such as cortisol, secreted by the brain, provide energy to our limbs so that we can run away immediately. At the same time, though, the hippocampus is robbed of its energy; if this goes on for a long time, then there are chances of short-term memory loss, because the hippocampus is vital in processing memory.
Repeated exposure to stress of the hippocampus can cause long-term damage and more permanent memory loss. So, it is important to get stress under control.

Can continuous stress cause memory loss? Yes, it can.

If you are forgetting more often, panicking about deadlines and too many unfinished tasks, then you must do something about it today. Stress can become a chronic ailment and you will suffer memory loss.

So, what can you do to contain stress?

1. Monitor how your body and brain are being affected by stress every day. It is important that you take this seriously in order to avoid irreparable damage. Make a note of times you feel particularly pushed; jot down how you are feeling and what you are doing. What are you eating? What are you drinking?
2. Make a list of tasks to be done and create a timeline. If you know that some deadlines you have agreed to cannot be done in the time, contact the recipient now and renegotiate. Take control, relieve the pressure and begin working in a planned, sensible way.
3. Organize your life so that you can work under normal conditions without undue stress. Enjoy your tasks and regain your life.
4. Be in control of the way you eat, exercise, plan and respond – think about your reactions consciously until you feel you life is back on track.

Stress related memory loss diseases include Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other related illnesses that can cause brain trauma. So take action NOW.
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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on the human brain, sleep, brain food and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.

Is this forgetfulness normal?

Many people over the age of 50 (and maybe even younger) experience mild forgetfulness.
Although these are a wake-up call to pay attention to your brain and memory, if the forgetfulness includes:
• Forgetting parts of an experience
• Forgetting where you park the car
• Forgetting events from the distant past
• Forgetting a person’s name, but remembering it later
Then, your memory loss is mild and would be regarded in the ‘normal’ range. It’s worrying though and, in the view of Dr. Allison Lamont, the Memory Doctor, “it’s time to take stock of your lifestyle and memory habits. Memory can be enhanced at this stage.”

When Should I Be Worried?

When you should be worried though, is when your memory loss is affecting your daily living. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive condition that damages areas of the brain involved in memory, intelligence, judgment, language, and behavior. MRi scans are now able to determine what is happening in an Alzheimer’s but, prior to this, doctors have ways of identifying when the memory loss has become more serious.

When Should I Check With My Doctor?

It’s time to check with your doctor, if you, or someone close to you, is:

• Forgetting something you have just done, or an event you have just attended
• Forgetting how to do things that you’ve done many times before, like driving a car or telling the time
• Repeating phrases or stories in the same conversation
• Forgetting ever having known a particular person
• Frequently becoming confused, or seeming ‘far away’
• Having trouble making choices or handling money
• Noticing that forgetting like this has become more frequent over the past six months.

Never accept memory loss as normal – in mild cases, you can do something about it today – check out Seven Second Memory for a memory program that works.
In serious cases, then the sooner you have an accurate diagnosis, the sooner you can take the necessary steps.

For further information, read Nine Secrets of a Sharp Brain After 55 and Keep that Boomer Brain Growing

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.

When you were growing up, I’m sure someone told you that you needed to ‘eat your greens’, ‘eat up your vitamins’? It won’t be new to you, then, to find out that there are lots of things in food, including minerals that you need in your body if you are to stay strong and healthy.

Just as your body needs to be in peak condition as you approach your 40’s and 50’s, to have a memory that keeps growing and never lets you down, your brain and neurons need the right foods also.

“One cannot think well, love well or sleep well,
if one has not dined well.”
Virginia Woolf (d. 1941)

What you eat directly affects the performance of your brain. Your intelligence, the way you move, your memory and even the beating of your heart, all rely on your brain cells. Research has shown that by eating the right food, you can boost your IQ, improve your mood, be more emotionally stable, sharpen your memory and keep your mind young.
The right nutrients will give your brain the power to think more quickly, remember for effectively, be better coordinated and balanced and have improved concentration. Unfortunately, with all of the food processing that takes place today, and because so many of the ingredients that are actively bad for your brain are used in almost everything edible in the supermarket, it is increasingly difficult to make sure that the foods you are eating are the right ones.

Think ‘balanced diet’ as you plan your meals for the week. Be sure to include at least 25 of the following in your shopping list.

Lean Protein

1. Fish – Salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring (also listed under fats)
2. Poultry – chicken and turkey (skinless)
3. Meat – lean beef and pork
4. Eggs – free-range and/or organic eggs are best
5. Tofu and Soy products
6. Dairy products – low fat cheeses, cottage cheese, low fat yogurt (sugar free) and low fat or skim milk
7. Beans and lentils – also listed under carbohydrates
8. Nuts and seeds, especially walnuts – also listed under fats

Complex Carbohydrates

1. Berries – especially blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries (keep frozen berries on hand as well)
2. Oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit
3. Cherries
4. Peaches, plums
5. Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts
6. Oats (the long cooking kind), whole wheat items, wholemeal bread with at least 3 grams of fiber.
7. Red or yellow peppers (much higher in Vitamin C than green)
8. Pumpkin squash
9. Spinach – for salad or cooked, adds fiber and nutrients
10. Tomatoes
11. Yams
12. Beans – also listed under proteins

Fats

1. Avocados
2. Extra virgin cold pressed olive oil
3. Olives
4. Salmon – also listed under protein
5. Nuts and Nut Butter, especially walnuts, macadamia nuts,
Brazil nuts, pecans and almonds – also listed under protein

Liquids

1. Water
2. Green or black tea

Remember to include minerals, too, as they are also critical to mental functioning and performance. Magnesium and manganese are needed for brain energy. Sodium, potassium and calcium are important in the thinking process and they facilitate the transmission of messages. Check food labels.

For more information, read Keep that Boomer Brain Growing

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on brain food link to this article page using memory loss and improving your memory, please visit the http://brainandmemoryfoundation.org

What was that word again?

A family meal was in progress and there was lively discussion about the latest neighborhood scandal. Forty-something, Ben J. had taken off with the 18 year-old babysitter. Hilarity prevailed as one after the other of us imagined what might become of the odd couple. Let’s face it, Ben wasn’t exactly slim! Then, because actually nor were most of us, a quotation from the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, started tugging at my brain. Something to do with being able to see ourselves as others see us. I knew it real well … how did it begin?
It was on the tip of my tongue. Do you know, try as I might, I couldn’t remember how that quotation began.

Why was this simple memory task so hard? Does it mean my brain is shot?

Well, there is good news and not so good news. What’s not so good is that the brain gradually gets older and having something you want to remember on the tip of the tongue (TOT’s for short) happens more to older people. But the good news is that they don’t mean that Alzheimer’s is the next step – and TOT’s can be almost eliminated if the brain, on a regular basis, is tuned up by exercise and being challenged to do difficult things.

Dr Allison Lamont PhD, specialist in age-related memory loss, explains what is happening when something is on the tip of the tongue, and you can’t recall it.

“People often think that words are stored in a unit in our head, and that we have a little place in our minds where we file everything we know about (for example) Robert Burns.”

“But information isn’t stored in our minds that way”, she explains, “there is a network operating across different parts of the brain that connects information, and you can sometimes lose access to one part and not the others. So you can remember that Robert Burns was Scottish, and see a picture of him in your mind’s eye, but on this occasion you were not able to recall the phrase you wanted because it’s not conveniently stored with the other facts you know.”

From the age of about 50 onwards, the connections in our information network weaken, causing occasional let downs in memory. This is especially true if we a particular connection hasn’t been activated for some time. The connection is still there, but it is weak and needs attention.

Lamont says that becoming fully engaged in life, using language and logic skills as much as possible, learning new things, socializing and being involved in lively conversations all help to keep brain connections firing. She is also enthusiastic about using brain-sharpening techniques that have proved to be successful in activating the brain. So committed is she to helping baby boomers push back the effects of aging on the brain, she has written a book called Seven Second Memory. Plus six other powerful memory techniques to rewire the brain for a youthful mind. It’s worth a read and it is a great way to starting fighting back against tip of the tongue problems.

By the way, that quotation from Robert Burns? Well, my 92 year-old mother, who has challenged herself with mental arithmetic and memorizing poetry for the past forty years, rescued me at the dinner table. With only a moment’s hesitation she came up with this:

‘O,wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us.’
(O would some power give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us.)
Robert Burns, Poem “To a Louse” – verse 8
Scottish national poet (1759 – 1796)

To find out more about your amazing memory, look up How To Improve Your Brain and What Causes Memory Loss?

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on brain food link to this article page using memory loss and improving your memory, please visit the http://brainandmemoryfoundation.org

The computer opens up the world at any age

All in our family have been amazed when visiting to see their 82 year-old GranPop peering at the computer screen, looking for messages from the family. Not only that, he has discovered the Internet and has been looking up Scottish things from all over the world. What a hoot! While not understanding for a nanosecond how the technology works, GranPop has been thrilled to be able to find out all of the wonderful information that would normally have taken him hours of research at the library.

With the proliferation of computers, UCLA scientists have been investigating whether all of this new activity improves the brain of older people. The results have been very positive.

The study, the first of its kind to assess the impact of Internet searching on brain performance, is reported in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Principal investigator Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA says “The study results are encouraging, that emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults. Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.”

Without any intervention, it is well known that as the brain ages, structural and functional changes occur, which can affect the way the brain performs. That’s why crossword puzzles and Sudoku have been so welcome for challenging the mind. With the advent of the internet, scientists, using MRI imaging, have compared what happens in the brain when doing Internet searches as compared with simple reading.

They found that the Internet’s many choices involves making rapid decisions about what to click on, and this activity enhances brain circuitry in older adults. ‘This demonstrate that our brains are sensitive and can continue to learn as we grow older,” Small said.

So as GranPop whiles away the hours on the Internet, he is also recharging his brain circuitry and re-growing vital brain connections that will increase his brain capacity.

Way to go, GranPop!

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on avoiding dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.

I've been here before - deja vu?

If it was, then I had just become one of the nearly 70 percent who admit to getting this feeling at least once in their lives. A higher percentage occurs in people 15 to 25 years. Anyway, the sight, sound, taste or even smell of something leads us to think that we’ve experienced before, although we know that we couldn’t have.

Déjà vu is a French term that literally means “already seen” and it has several variations, including déjà vécu, (already experienced); déjà senti, (already thought); and déjà visité, (already visited). French scientist Emile Boirac, one of the first to study this strange phenomenon, gave the subject its name in 1876.

There are more than 40 theories as to what déjà vu is and what causes it, and they range from reincarnation to lapses in our memory processes. I’m still trying to work out why I knew what Megan was going to say. I even knew what the coffee shop was going to look like, although I can’t ever remember being in there before.

The most common misuse of the term déjà vu seems to be with precognitive experiences — experiences where someone gets a feeling that they know exactly what’s going to happen next, and it does. But it is important to remember that déjà vu is experienced during an event, not before. Precognitive experiences — if they are real — show things that will happen in the future, not things that you’ve already experienced.

Hallucinations that are brought on by illness or drugs sometimes bring a heightened awareness and these are confused with déjà vu. False memories that are brought on by schizophrenia can be confused with déjà vu as well. Unlike true déjà vu, which typically lasts from 10 to 30 seconds, these false memories or hallucinations can last much longer.

I don’t think I was having a hallucination! Actually, scientists don’t all agree about why these experiences happen. Déjà vu occurs in individuals with and without a medical conditions.

Several psychoanalysts attribute déjà vu to simple fantasy or wish fulfillment, while some psychiatrists ascribe it to a mismatching in the brain that causes the brain to mistake the present experience for something similar that has happened in the past. Hence the feeling of familiarity. Then again, many parapsychologists believe it is related to a past-life experience that may have been repressed or forgotten.

I know that I had an eerie experience in that coffee shop but it looks as if there’s a lot more investigation to be done before I can tell you, for certain, why.

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on keeping that boomer brain growing and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.

Shopping - one decision after another!

I’ve just come back from the store where I spent nearly two hours trying to decide which skirt to buy. Would you believe it? I narrowed it down to two but then my brain seemed to go completely blank and I couldn’t remember all the items I already owned that would go with each skirt. So, I left the exasperated assistant with the items to put on hold for me until the next day. And, you know, that’s often the best way for those really big decisions!

With a bit of space to think and recall, I could begin to organize combinations of garments in my mind and, even better, after a decent night’s sleep, my mind was clear. I didn’t need either of them because I found a skirt in the wardrobe that I had scarcely worn that was a better match. Well, I guess this doesn’t count as a life-changing event but it reminded me that sometimes, under pressure, it is hard to sort out and combine all of the thoughts you have that are relevant to the problem in hand.

That sleep I had was important in helping me sort out what I wanted to do as well. It was no surprise, then, to find out that sleep researchers believe that for every two hours we spend awake, the brain needs an hour of sleep to figure out what all the experiences we have engaged in mean. Sleep not only helps store facts, it also helps make connections between them. It’s the time when the brain’s two memory systems—the hippocampus and the neocortex—”talk” with one other, which plays a crucial role in constructing meaning in our lives.

Conversely, sleep-deprivation experiments have shown that a tired brain has a difficult time capturing memories of all sorts, and an even tougher time making decisions. We need our sleep.

“Relational memory is a bit like solving a jigsaw puzzle,” explains senior author Matthew Walker, PhD, Director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at BIDMC and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). “It’s not enough to have all the puzzle pieces — you also have to understand how they fit together.”

Researchers Walker and Jeffrey Ellenbogen, MD, a postdoctoral fellow at HMS and sleep neurologist, hypothesized that relational memory develops during “off-line” periods and that, like procedural memory, it would be enhanced following a period of sleep.

They tested 56 healthy college students, each of whom was shown five pairs of unfamiliar abstract patterns — colorful oval shapes resembling Faberge’ eggs. The students were then told that some of the patterns were “correct” while others were “incorrect,” but were not told that there was a hidden “hierarchy” linking all five of the pairs together. The three groups were then tested for their understanding of the larger “big picture” relationship between the individual patterns. The results showed that the students who had had periods of sleep between learning and testing, significantly outperformed the other groups.

“This strongly implies that sleep is actively engaged in the cognitive processing of our memories,” says Ellenbogen. “Knowledge appears to expand both over time and with sleep.”

Help Short Term Memory

Walker added, “These findings point to an important benefit [of sleep] that we had not previously considered. Sleep not only strengthens a person’s individual memories, it appears to actually knit them together and help realize how they are associated with one another.

And this may turn out to be the primary goal of sleep: You go to bed with pieces of the memory puzzle, and awaken with the jigsaw completed.”

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on sleep, cognitive processing, the brain and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.

Taxi drivers develop new brain connections

Researcher Eleanor Maguire of the Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology described the study: We got the taxi drivers to imagine they were driving from point to point [on London streets] while their brains were being observed using MRI scans. We also asked them to recall other types of memory that didn’t involve any navigation, like describing famous landmarks like the Statue of Liberty or the Sydney Opera House.”

What transpired from the study was that the hippocampus wasn’t activated for just describing the landmarks but it was highly active when the drivers were imagining navigating a route that involved passing the landmarks. Connecting information and processing it into the memory happens in the hippocampus.

It is no surprise then to find that, compared with other drivers who do not have to know all the streets and landmarks of London (called “The Knowledge”), London taxi drivers have a measurably larger hippocampus.

Brain Scan Revealed Larger Hippocampus

Why is this good news for boomers? Well, it is a stunning example of the fact that the brain will grow if it is challenged to learn new information, particularly complex information. Setting out to learn the complete map of London might not be the challenge for you, but I’m sure there are others that your brain will thank you for. Maybe the map of New York? Just joking!

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Please feel free to reproduce this article on your website. See our article reproduction policy for details. In brief, all you need to do is reproduce the article above and add the following credit footer including the links unaltered and then email us at brainandmemoryfoundation@gmail.com to let us know where you’re reproducing it because we’ll be excited to see it on your site! Please let us know if we can help in any other way. We want to get the word out.

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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on how to remember, your brain, and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.