In Search of Memory

In Search of Memory, the Emergence of a New Science of Mind, by Eric R. Kandel, is not what I had in mind for summer reading. I was looking for a mystery when I wandered over to the nonfiction area of my little neighborhood bookstore. Kandel's book looked interesting, was highly portable in paperback, and a possible choice for my upcoming plane trip. I knew Eric Kandel was at Columbia and was a Nobel Prize winner for his work on the mind but that was about it.

I read a few pages, overcame my belief that this one could likely be dry as dust and bought it. It turns out that Mr. Kandel is quite a writer in addition to being a great scientist. He pulled me in immediately with his descriptions of his early life in Vienna and I never got out again. From there, I was whisked into his love affair with medicine and science and the mind, not to mention real people, like his wife and children. He intertwined his love of art, music, fine wines, and good friends with his fascination with the behavior of the aplysia's cells and the biology of memory. He also managed to sneak in a chronology of scientific research on cognition and the mind from its early beginnings until today and in an understandable, extremely interesting way.

He included a poem, written by his young daughter, titled (of course) "The Aplisa." "An aplisa is like a squishy snail. In rain in snow in sleet in hail. When it is angry, it shoots out ink. The ink is purple, not pink. An aplisa cannot live onland. It doesn't have feet so it can't stand. It has a very funny mouth, And in winter it goes to the south." Kandel was clearly obsessed and his family knew it. The rest of us on the planet should be thankful for his compulsive curiosity about what was happening in the cells of the aplysia. We are also fortunate that a number of other creative scientists were beginning to think about the mind differently than in the past at around the same time so they could build on each others' work. They were beginning to realize that so many of the mind's functions are controlled by the biology of the cell. Amazing that understanding the chemical reactions in the cells of one of earth's smallest organisms has enabled gigantic progress in our understanding of what we like to think is one of the most complicated organs on earth, the human brain.

For a magnificent review, please take a look at the Neurophilosophy blog. Better yet, read the book. A great story. A wonderful life.

NIA Study: Cognitive Skills Training Keeps Our Brains Sharp

Great news today from the ACTIVE (the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly) study, a large longitudinal study funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Nursing Research, both parts of the NIH. People who actively train on specific cognitive skills (in this case, memory, processing speed, and reasoning) experience long-term benefits that generalize into everyday living. The group who trained were much more likely to succeed at everyday tasks like driving, managing money, and general problem-solving than their peers who did not participate in these mental exercises. In other words, they kept their mental edge. The conclusion: "use it or lose it" really does apply to the brain, too, and cognitive training can make a big difference.

Heretofore, one of the researchers--Timothy Salthouse--has been very negative about cognitive skills training and has been quoted widely. He has questioned whether there is any worthwhile effect--short or long-term--or if cognitive training can generalize to real-life situations.

Today we got a very different and much more positive view of this important research. Kudos to everyone involved and especially to lead author Sherry L. Willis, PhD of Pennsylvania State University and her co-authors at six other affiliated institutions.

A Little Spice in Our Lives: Good Brain Food

In my Peace Corps days as a volunteer teacher in North Africa, I vividly remember buying spices from large burlap spice bags at the Thursday morning open-air market on the main street of my little town, Grombalia, Tunisia. The women selling the spices had colorful orange and brown scarves wrapped around their heads with long, silver earrings dangling from their ears in the Berber style . They were friendly and I often bought spices, taking their advice on how to use them in cooking. That's where I learned to love turmeric, also called curcumin. It's a bright yellow spice which colors everything in its path yellow (including your hands if you're not careful) and is a key ingredient in curry, which accounts for the yellow color of most curries. I like curries of all kinds, mild to spicy, but I learned from the Berber women that turmeric is also great on baked or roasted fish.

Lately, several studies have looked at the effects of turmeric on the prevention of Alzheimer's. Previous research efforts have noted that the rate of Alzheimer's in people over 65 in the US is four times that of the same demographic in India. In fact, in some towns in India, less than one percent of the population over 65 have Alzheimer's. Naturally, diet is one place to look for the differences. And yes, turmeric is a grand antioxidant, which appears to significantly help prevent the plaques and tangles and related inflammation of Alzheimer's in the brain.

This finding, the latest in a series of similar findings over the last few months, came from research at the University of California, Los Angeles, led by Dr. Sally Frautschy.

The Slow But Gradual End of Alzheimer's As We Know It

As noted in Sunday's LA Times and this month's Science magazine, November 3 (or 4, depending on which publication you read) marked the hundredth anniversary of Dr. Alois Alzheimer's medical conference presentation of a patient's case with a neurogenerative disease that has come to be known as Alzheimer's Disease. The Neurophilopher's Weblog also did a fine recounting of the history. The LA Times states that another event will also be marked: "the slow but gradual end of Alzheimer's as we know it--and the Americanization of dementia science."

For the last 100 years, scientists have been trying to figure out what causes Alzheimer's plaques and tangles in the brain. Sadly, very few actual advances in therapies have occurred for people who have been diagnosed with AD. But as author Greg Critser points out, President Ronald Reagan and his family's openness about their struggles with AD have motivated researchers to begin looking at AD differently, both in ways to prevent it and therapies to deal with this tragic disease. In the therapeutic arena, stem cell research is one possibility. We know from research on brain plasticity that we can already "rewire" our brains so why not get a little help from transplanted neurons to make connections stifled by AD's plaques and tangles?

On the prevention side, researchers are looking at diet, exercise, mental stimulation, and "dysfunction" of brain cells due to other potentially controllable brain environmental factors, such as the way certain brain cells use glucose. Scientists are realizing that AD does not have to be totally linear in its progression. We are beginning to see solid research on strategies that can prevent or slow down AD and dementia as well as compensation strategies to help the brain create additional connections and pathways through mental stimulation and learning. Many, many scientists are now looking closely at these lifestyle decisions and concluding that it really does matter how you live your life and the choices you make along the way.


Technorati tags: cognition, brain, longevity, aging, brain exercise, Alzheimer's, health and wellness, brain health,

We Are What They Think We Are

In the October 20 issue of Science, researchers Dar-Nimrod and Heine from the University of British Columbia reported on a study they conducted. They told one group of women that women do not perform well in science and math, using a disguised research study report as the basis of this "fact." The other group was not shown the "study results." And guess what? Well, of course. The women who thought that women were naturally bad at math and science performed much more poorly than the group that just got to wing it, using their own perceptions and skills. Chris Lee at Nobel Intent also commented on this study and as he points out, "scientific theories that promulgate genetic explanations for performance difference become self-fulfilling. . . there are enough high-performing women scientists in all fields to indicate that genetics is unlikely to be a major contributor to women's average under-performance in math and science."

These results are amazingly similar to the research conducted with blue and brown-eyed children in the 50s. One group was inferior one day and the other group was deemed inferior the next day with the expected results: huge drops in self-esteem, feelings of interiority and associated behaviors, such as shyness, loss of humor, etc.

This study also reminds me of the recent finding regarding people who ignore the stereotypes associated with a certain age. Researchers found that indeed they behaved in every way like people many years younger. We seem to want to fit the stereotype one way or another. Are these behaviors a result of mirror-psych neurons?

Technorati tags: cognition, brain, neuroscience, aging,

Mother Was Right: Eat Your Vegetables (They're Good for Your Brain)

Martha Clare Morris, associate professor at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, has been observing the effects of diet on aging and the brain. She and her team have found that eating vegetables, especially green leafy ones, every day can make a big difference in the brains of those who crunched through kale, spinach, lettuce, chard, and other green leafies and those who didn't: faster thinking. Or, as she put it, the equivalent of being five years younger in age for the veggie-consumers.

The study involved six years of observation of 3,718 participants who were 65 and older and is part of the Chicago Health and Aging Project.

The reason? "Morris suspects that vegetables may help protect memory and thinking speed because they contain high amounts of vitamin E, an antioxidant that can help reduce the damage caused by free radicals, unstable oxygen molecules generated by normal metabolism that can damage neurons in the brain and contribute to dementia." These research results were reported in the Oct. 24 issue of the journal Neurology.

In another report issued by the AMA last year, Morris concluded that eating fish at least once a week increases brain fitness, too, equaling a brain-age three-to-four years younger. Fruit-eaters did not experience such brain-related benefits.

I think by now we all know that green leafy veggies and fish are good diet choices. We didn't know that they could make that much difference. Berkeley Professor of Integrative Biology, Marion Diamond, has been saying this for quite some time, however.

Technorati tags: cognition, brain, Alzheimer's, dementia, memory, brain fitness, diet

Regular Exercise Works Best for Our Brains

The LA Times Health section featured an article by Greg Miller on Friday which summed up current research on keeping our brains healthy and fit throughout our lives. According to the article, a panel of experts assembled by the National Institutes of Health earlier this year reviewed the scientific literature on cognitive aging. They concluded that regular, consistent mental workouts, physical exercise, social interactions, and attention to cardiovascular health are critical to keeping mental edge as we get older. The regular and consistent part turns out to be extremely important. We already know that quick fixes don't work with exercise or diet. Now it's clear that regular workouts for our brains are also important. Marilyn Albert, a cognitive neuroscientist from Johns Hopkins University summed it up:

"The fab four. . . are physical activity, mental activity, social engagement and cardiovascular health." And researchers say, there's very little difference between men and women in the cognitive aging arena.

Denise Park, another respected researcher in aging and cognition from the University of Illinois adds that it is very important to learn new things with new challenges instead of getting stuck in the same old rut. If you already play the flute, take up a language. If you love cooking, try gardening, too, etc. The message: stay active, physically and mentally, and continue to challenge yourself to stay fit.

Lately in several articles about keeping the brain fit as we age, Dr. Timothy Salthouse has been quoted as the contrarian, based on the large study called A.C.T.I.V.E, that he led. He concluded that mental training is not particularly helpful.

I think it's very important to look at the A.C.T.I.V.E research design to be able to understand why Dr. Salthouse is as negative as he is, at least in the soundbites from newspaper articles. The study lasted for 24 months and tested specific intervals of training in a group of men and women between the ages of 65 and 94. Three of the four groups received ten sessions stretched over several weeks of 60-75 minutes each of training on a particular cognitive skill like reasoning, memory, or processing speed. Then 11 months later, they got three more hours of training (called booster sessions).

The groups were tested three times: after the first set of sessions, after the Booster, and then 24 months after the first sessions. They found a decline in each of the skills at the second and third test points.

In other words, Salthouse et al. found that quick fixes don't work. Why does this surprise anyone? If I don't speak French for a year or two (even with three hours of study in between), my French is less than it used to be. If I speak and study regularly and consistently, I notice that my fluency improves dramatically. Same thing with piano playing, with Sudoku, bridge, and practically any other pursuit that involves my brain that I can think of. Regular practice makes me better and faster at the task at hand. If I don't practice, I slow down. Sounds remarkably like what happens when I don't cycle or swim for a few weeks. I have to work on retraining my muscles and my breathing.

Scheherazade

My mother sits in her grandfather's wing chair upholstered many times over, now covered in worn fabric with a creamy yellow background with small blue flowers. We have just moved all of her things, again. Her paintings fill the opposite wall, two and three deep, almost up to the ceiling. The high ceiling of the room, which we call an apartment, provides the space for my mother's precious drawings, prints, paintings, and found art that make up the framework of familiarity and memory of her 80-something-year-old life. We feel comforted by that and hope she is, too. Her children, my sister, the baby and now in her 40s, my brother who is retired, and myself, the oldest, have moved her choices of furniture and keepsakes into the "apartment" with one door leading out into the world and one door leading to the nurses' station and the cheerful atrium with dining tables and comfortable living room sofas.

I sense that Mother feels numb. I think she wants to laugh and smile and cry again. She wants to be interested again in life, love and adventure. She has always had such a strong inner life, protecting her most prized possession, her creativity. But now, her eyes have lost their gleam, their energy and willfulness, their life. Her life. She often complains of the intense pain in her lower back and has focused on her pain, the pain of going on and on and on, the pain of living beyond her routine, her fulfillments, her husband, her friends, the pain of having to learn everything, and every person, in a new place, all over again. She seems tired, worn with living. She often falls, sometimes head first, sometimes against the bed or the bureau, leading to more pain, more confusion. And fear.

Her muscles have contracted to nothing, her thin-skinned arms hang with flesh instead of flexing with taut muscles as they did in her gardening days, symbolic of all that has faded, evaporated, gone away. Her skin is paper-thin and so wrinkled, cream crepe with dark purple, light mauve and brown tie-dyed colorations, in strange patterns. her own patterns. She always covers her arms now with fabric, not with the lively colored stones of her many, many bracelets. She avoids deep v-neck shirts and blouses, for the same reason, and has lost interest in her vast collection of earrings and necklaces. She still takes some glory in her beautiful silver white hair. She hangs on to her weekly hair appointments like they're the last life raft available from the sinking ship of age. And she does perk up visibly after having her shampoo and coif; she clearly feels comfortable reminiscences of her former beauty and self.

I flew in from California to see her. We have had a heavy schedule of movies this week. My mother loves for me to take her to movies and restaurants when I am in town. We go in the early afternoon to avoid the crowds. Moving her body from car to wheelchair through the thick, slow-opening doors of the theaters is hard work. She always goes to the restroom afterwards, which is arduous for both of us.

"Mother, do you need anything or would you like anything?" I ask as my mother and I return from an art movie. We've had an early dinner at the French cafe next door to the film house, sitting on the terrace, enjoying the sun in our faces. My mother looks so small in her wheelchair. "Would you like some particular kind of food? Or books?"

She shakes her head and then suddenly brightens. "Classical music," she whispers.

"Great. So you've been using that CD player I got you?" She nods. "OK, what would you like? Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Vivaldi?"

"Yes, yes," she shakes her head up and down slowly, looking at me intensely. "I've missed music."

I hope so, I thought. This is a woman who has always had music in her life. I feel a pang. My sister and I sold her beautiful white enameled grand piano. She loved playing and owning that piano. She loved composing. She loved singing and playing for others. She loved to dance, too. Music brought joy to my mother's face, everyday as she played a few pieces alone for herself. As a child, I felt calmer and somehow more loved when I heard her magical soft touch on the piano. It meant Mother was having a happy, small spiritual energizing interlude. And I was included if I was in hearing distance.

Her short-term memory is shot. Her body is frail and broken. Her hand-eye coordination is pitiful. She's lost her sense of humor, her saucy edge, her flirtatious kick, and her multitude of interests. She has had many batches of TIA's, those nasty clusters of little strokes that put roadblocks on the brain's neural paths. We call them MIA's because the mother we knew is missing in action now.

I stop by the local music store and run in to buy an armload of classical CDs: Brahms, Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov. "Art, music, reading, writing, travel, and appreciation of nature are all manifestations of the great spirit within us that needs to be heard, " my mother often told me as I was growing up.

"Can you help me dress for bed?" Mother says, even though it's just now 6 p.m. We've arrived at her apartment after our afternoon foray into movies, food, and CD-buying.

"Sure." I carefully pull her pink sweater over her newly coiffed hairdo. Multiple folds of flaccid skin hang from her upper arms but her shoulders look like those of a young girl. I pull her black synthetic trousers down her legs, careful to keep her diaper and her dignity in place. I pull her pink nylon nightie over her head and gently lie her down on her bed.

"Please tuck me in," she says sweetly, like a small child trying to do the right thing.

I pull the covers up under her chin and give her a big kiss on her cheek. "I love you, Mother. Is there anything else you'd like me to do?"

"Yes, I want to listen to Scheherazade forever. Can you make it keep playing?" She softly sighs, worried.

"Yes, Mother, I will." As the wistful and sweet strains of that paean to exotic adventure begins to play, big tears roll from the edge of my eyes. I am overcome with grief and sadness.

The Need for Friends Is Hardwired in Our Brains

Daniel Goleman's NY Times article yesterday summarized why many neuroscientists believe that the need for human social interaction is so important to us, physically and mentally. We already know that folks with strong social networks of friends and family get well faster after injury or disease and live longer. But why?

Mirror neurons may be a big part of the answer. Our brains are hardwired to "mirror" what other people do or to rapidly synchronize with the feelings of others. This explains empathy and rapport, for example. Or as two researchers, Lisa M. Diamond and Lisa Aspinwall from the University of Utah, put it (in Daniel Goleman's much more accessible words): "emotional closeness allows the biology of one person to influence the other." And John T. Cacioppo from the University of Chicago, says that "the emotional status of our main relationships has a significant impact on our overall pattern of cardiovascular and neuroendocrine activity." We know, for example, that a supportive remark or touch from a friend can actually lower our blood pressure, reduce stress, and certainly make us feel better.

There we go, again: the amazing connection between heart and head. We are in for some exciting research and findings ahead.

On another but related topic, I've just found a new blog (for me), Developing Intelligence. Chris Chatham's last few postings have been on language acquisition and the intersection between language, culture, perception, and meaning. Mirror neurons should definitely be a topic in this discussion.

Language is a crazy salad of categorizing sounds and meaning and perceptions, organizing our thoughts (more categories, which result in, for example, grammar and syntax), and then comprehending others and expressing ourselves. I think it will become clear through more research in areas like "mirror neurons" that language and thinking are closely connected to our need for and response to social interactions. That's where we get the idea about language in the first place. And that's why language is so intertwined with culture, perception, and meaning, occurring through social interactions. Incredibly complex and alarmingly simple, at the same time. Like all really workable systems.

The message: one important part of brain fitness has got to be strong social interactions with friends and family. Our biology is just waiting to be influenced by others and those mirror neurons need to be exercised just like everything else.

Just in Time for Halloween: Scary Brain Story

Erica Good's NY Times' story this past week sent chills up my spine, a loud, ghoulish fright, just in time to haunt my mind for the scary season. Dr. David A. Dunning of Cornell and a graduate student, Justin Kruger, have been studying people who do things badly, who are, in other words, incompetent. These are the people who just keep at it, no matter how many signs and clues they get from others. They found that these folks are supremely confident of their abilities, in fact, often more confident than people who are really experts. Dunning says, "I began to think that there probably lots of things that I was bad at, and I didn't know it."

In the paper they wrote for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, they say of these folks, "Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it." Yikes! Then they go on to give examples, which are a little too close to home. This is why, they say, inept joke tellers just keep at it (and you can just guess the rest of the examples). I feel like I'm lost in a Holiday Inn ad. You know, the one where some "expert" (pilot, surgeon, whatever's needed) pops up to solve the crisis. When asked, "are you a surgeon, pilot, whatever? The answer, "no, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night." Well, trick or treat.

And once again, Garrison Keillor nails it: "And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

You're Only as Old as You Think You Are!

Gina Kolata's great article in yesterday's NY Times was picked up in numerous other publications, for good reason. Yes, it is all in our heads--and hearts. New research results from the National Institute on Aging have just been released from studies trying to figure out why some people become frail as they age and others don't. The main reasons center around two surprises: (l) hidden heart disease; and (2) mental images connected to chronological age. In the case of the second reason, people who rebel against culturally acceptable norms of how they should act at 50, 60, 70, 80 and on are much more likely to lead active, energetic lives than those who believe that a certain age must result in physical and/or mental decline. Once again, fascinating news with reverberating implications. So, 60 really can be the new 40! We just have to see ourselves as not fitting into our cultural and media-driven stereotypes. Keep rebelling, Boomers!

technorati: cognition, brain, brain exercises, Booomers

Get Energy from Speedy Thoughts

Emily Pronin at Princeton and Daniel Wegner at Harvard teamed up to study the effects of cognitive processing speed. They found that manipulating speed, even in simple ways like reading at a fast pace versus a slow pace made for happier, more energetic people with increased feelings of power, creativity, and self-esteem. "Quick" and "slow" take on new meaning. These two researchers concluded that the speed that people process information is just as important as the content itself. OK, forget caffeine. Next time I need an energy boost, I'll engage in a fast-paced conversation instead. Fascinating findings with lots of implications for both therapies and everyday use. One conclusion: our brains really do need regular, consistent exercise on the basic how-to skills to be able to acquire and retain content/knowledge efficiently. And be in a good mood.

technorati: cognition, brain, brain exercises, processing speed