clair073

Have you noticed that so many elderly people seem frail, walk slowly, and seem to lack energy? If this applies to you, noticing it is unavoidable. These problems are preventable. For 25 years, I jogged at least a mile and a half three times a week. This was crucial for helping me stop smoking. I don’t know why, except that I could not smoke and jog at the same time. Also, the 15-30 minute recovery time reminded me just how bad the smoking had been for my health. Why did I quit jogging? The jogging messed up my joints. So, I took up swimming, but since I sink like a lead mannequin, that is just too much work. So now, I joined a gym, where I use the elliptical, treadmill, and muscle-building machines. This environment helps because I have companions in my discomfort, and occasionally I get the satisfaction of comparing myself to the few “90-pound weaklings” that show up. We have known for many years that exercise is good for you, especially as you get older. Known benefits of exercise in...

Got kids or grandkids in school? Odds are they are not getting enough sleep, and it is hurting their learning and grades. This is a special problem for older adolescents. At this age, the biological clock shifts and makes them stay up too late if they need to get up at 6-7 A.M. to get ready for school. Kids this age need about 9 hours of sleep a night. So what is the relationship to learning? Two things: 1. When students are drowsy during class, they can't focus attention and will not encode new information effectively. Sometimes they even fall asleep in class, which means they are not encoding anything. 2. Sleep provides an uninterrupted mental environment in which the brain rehearses the events of that day. As documented in dozens of peer-reviewed research reports, this rehearsal promotes consolidation of fragile temporary memory into more permanent form. Now, two new studies reveal what happens during sleep to accomplish this consolidation task. Just as a computer writes to a ha...

Generally speaking, you cannot learn from sounds of new information while you sleep, though this was a fad several decades ago. But in an earlier post, I discussed a new line of research where sleep learning can occur. The key is to play sound cues that were associated with learning that occurred during the previous wakefulness period. The explanation I posted was that cue-dependent sleep learning can work because a normal function of sleep is to strengthen memories of new information and that presenting relevant cues during sleep increases the retrieval of these memories and makes them accessible for rehearsal and strengthening. The latest experiment by a different group shows that this cuing during sleep can modify bad attitudes and habits. The test involved counter stereotype-training of certain biased attitudes during wakefulness, and investigators reactivated that counter-training during sleep by playing a sound cue that had been associated with the wakefulness training. In the e...

In other blog posts I have explained why sleep is good for the brain in general and memory formation in particular. Now a new discovery provides another reason for people to get enough sleep. The study examined a type of support cell in the brain, oligodendrocytes–let’s call them oligos for short. These cells wrap their membranes around nerve cells to form what is called myelin, which forms an electrical insulation in a way that speeds up the propagation of nerve impulses through neural networks. You may have heard about oligos in reading about multiple sclerosis, a disease that impairs nerve communication because oligos die and the myelin insulation degrades. Speed of transmission is important–it influences IQ for example. As you know from buying a new computer, the faster processor speed gives it new capabilities your old clunker could not do. A similar idea applies to the brain. Anyway, this new study, from the University of Wisconsin, focused on oligos because other research had sh...

As each of us goes through life, we remember a little and forget a lot. The stockpile of what we remember contributes greatly to define us and our place in the world. Thus, it is important to remember and optimize the processes that make that possible. People who compete in memory contests (“memory athletes”) have long known the value of associational cues (see my Memory Power 101 book). Neuroscientists have known for a long time about memory consolidation (converting short-term memory to long-term form) and the value of associational cues. But now, important new understanding is arising from a research lab at Northwestern that links cueing to “re-consolidation” and reveals new possibilities for optimizing long-term memory formation. The underlying research approach is based on such well-established memory principles as: When information is first acquired, it is tagged for its potential importance or value. Such tagging is influenced by multiple factors such as repetition, attention, ...

Deterioration of the brain usually sneaks up on us. By the time we realize it, it may be too late. As we get older, we more frequently start asking questions like “Where did I put the car keys?” “What was it I was supposed to get at the store?” “What’s your name again?” Most of us have had to ask questions like this, and it seems to happen more often as we get older. We can’t turn back our biological clock, but there are things seniors can do to reduce the rate of their mental decline. The time to act is while you are still relatively young.  I have made a career out of studying brain and behavioral research literature, and I know some of this research is relevant to everyday memory problems. I have summarized these findings in my new book, Memory Power 101 (298 pages, $14.95, Skyhorse.com), and keep readers up to date with my blog (thankyoubrain.blogspot.com). As people age, beginning in early middle age, many of them experience a brain deterioration that progresses silently over...