‘Never Too Late’: Brain Exercise to Boost Cognitive Function At Any Age
By Tanner Jensen | August 17th, 2020
FROM: BeingPatient.com
Age-related cognitive decline is as normal as loss of muscle mass. But just like regular exercise can keep aging bodies in shape, healthy lifestyle habits and brain exercises can slow cognitive decline and even improve cognitive function.
-
Like muscles, the brain becomes stronger with exercise even later in life
-
Good sleep, a healthy diet and regular exercise can help maintain brain health as well as body health
Being Patient spoke with Dr. Majid Fotuhi, a neuroscientist and the medical director of NeuroGrow Brain Fitness Center in McLean, Virginia, about his research and work on brain rejuvenation and rehabilitation.
How Does Exercising the Brain Work?
Being Patient: A lot of people think of the brain as a muscle, and while that’s not strictly accurate, what actually happens to our brains when we make them stronger?
Dr. Majid Fotuhi: Your brain is made up of cells called neurons, and neurons have extensions which connect with other neurons. Your brain has thousands of blood vessels and capillaries that feed the neurons and the connections between them. We know for a fact that you can improve your brain function by a number of ways.
Number one, increasing your number of neurons. When you exercise a lot, you have more neurons, which is really incredible that you can create more neurons through vigorous exercise.
Number two, you can make more fiber bundles, the little highways from one side of the brain to the other. The more you use your brain, the more you solidify those connections between different parts of the brain.
Number three is that you can have more synapses. When a neuron approaches another neuron and touches it, it provides support for communication. And the more of these synapses you have, the stronger the communication will be between neurons in different corners of your brain. If you have a lot of synapses, you can think better, you can solve more problems, you can remember better.
Number four is that you can have more blood vessels. As you exercise or meditate, you actually create more of these branches of blood vessels that carry more oxygen and nutrition to your brain. So those are four ways that you can literally grow your brain and make yours a healthier and stronger brain. And these things don’t require years of work to get there. With our brain fitness program, which is actually a brain rehabilitation program, you can get results within three months.
Being Patient: When we say that we’re making our brains stronger, what does that mean? Are we getting smarter. Does it mean that our memory will be enhanced?
Dr. Majid Fotuhi: Your brain has different corners, different areas. There’s a part of your brain in front that’s important for attention, concentration, and there’s a part of the brain on the side that’s important for memory.
You can work out these different brain areas just like you can work out different muscles. When you exercise you increase blood flow and synapses and fiber bundles throughout your brain, so exercise is one of those things that’s helpful for all brain areas. But if for example you had issues with attention, then you could focus on doing targeted brain games that challenge your attention and concentration.
For example, you can memorize a deck of cards. Or you can play brain games that require you to think fast, solve problems fast, and respond fast. If you have difficulty with navigation for example, you can work on brain areas related to navigation. Your brain has different components, and different components are related to different brain functions. If you do targeted brain training, you can improve those areas of the brain, and that’s what we do here.
Article Submitted by Pat France, MSRN Member
