Age, brain function and focus

Many studies confirm that those who lead mentally active lives have better brain function.

"The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge states that we are less likely to get Alzheimer's disease or dementia under these conditions:
1. the more education we have
2. the more socially and physically active we are
and
3. the more we participate in mentally stimulating activities.

Not all activities are equal.  Those that involve genuine concentration -- studying a musical instrument, playing board games, reading, dancing -- are those associated with a lower risk of dementia. These studies stop short of proving that we can prevent Alzheimer's disease with brain activities. The most that can be said at the moment is that it seems very promising.

Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than the lack of stimulation. It is better to continually learn new things, which plays a role in being happy and healthy in old age.  Finding something one has always wanted to do is best, because it will be highly motivational, which is crucial.  David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, taught himself ancient Greek in old age to master the classics in the original.  At ninety, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

At seventy-eight, Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals.  This last one I am especially grateful for.

When Pablo Casals, the cellist, was ninety-one years old, he was approached by a student who asked, "Master, why do you continue to practice?" Casals replied, "Because I am making progress."

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Neuroplasticity is the ability for our brains to change.  They are always changing.  Michael Merzenich, a neuroplastician, has shown how these brain-processing areas transform.  He claims that plasticity exists from the cradle to the grave, and that radical improvements in how we learn, think, perceive and remember are possible even in the elderly.

These claims are from a man who has made a name for himself in this area of science.  Early in his career, he and his group developed the most commonly used design for the cochlear implant, a device to help congenitally deaf children to hear. He also developed Fast ForWord, which is disguised as a game for children, but has helped hundreds of thousands of learning-disabled students improve their ability to learn, understand, and retain that knowledge.

When we learn, we obviously increase what we know.  But Merzenich has shown that we can also change the structure of the brain itself and increase its capacity to learn.  Unlike a computer, the brain is constantly adapting itself.  It doesn't just learn, it is always learning to learn.  Our brain is not a vessel to fill, but more like a living creature with an appetite, one that can grow and change itself with proper nourishment and exercise.

In numerous experiments, Merzenich discovered that paying close attention is essential to long-term plastic change.  When we perform tasks automatically, without paying attention, we change our brain maps, but the changes do not last.  We often praise the "ability to multitask."  While we do learn when we divide our attention, this kind of attention doesn't lead to abiding change in our brain maps. It takes focused attention to make those long-term changes.

So when doing homework, the question might be, "How long do I want to retain this knowledge?" If the answer is: just long enough to pass the test, then the distractions don't really matter.

Now you have heard something interesting.

Mental practice

From the book "The Brain That Changes Itself" is this story about Alvaro Pascual-Leone, who is a neuroscientist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He conducted an imagining experiment in his lab.  He taught two groups of people, who had never studied piano, a sequence of notes.  He showed them which fingers to move and let them hear the notes as they were played.  Then one group sat in front of an electric piano keyboard for two hours a day for five days and imagined playing the sequence and hearing it played.  The other group actually played the music two hours a day for five days.

Then the groups were asked to play as a computer measured their accuracy.  Both groups learned the sequence, and both showed similar brain changes.  By the end of the fifth day, the changes in motor signals to the muscles were the same in both groups. And on this  fifth day, the players who had imagined were as accurate playing the notes as the actual players had been on their third day.  All it took was one session lasting 2 hours to make them as accurate as the playing group.

Clearly, mental practice has merit. 
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One of the most advanced forms of mental practice is "mental chess," played without a board or pieces. The players imagine the board and the play, keeping track of the positions.

Anatoly Sharansky, a Soviet human rights activist, spent nine years in prison.  Four hundred days of this time was spent in solitary confinement in freezing, darkened 5X6 foot punishment cells.  Prisoners in isolation often fall apart mentally because the use-it-or-lose-it brain needs external stimulation. During this extended period of solitary, Sharansky played mental chess for months on end, playing both black and white, from opposite perspectives.  He once said, half joking, that he kept at chess thinking he might as well use the opportunity to become the world champion.

After he was released, he became a cabinet minister in Israel.  When the world champion, Garry Kasparov, played against the prime minister and leaders of the cabinet, he beat all of them except Sharansky.

Now you have heard something interesting.