Your changing brain as you grow older
Positive Aging - helping your brain adopt new skills
Until the midle of last century, Western medical professionals and scientists believed that the human brain was ‘fixed’ after childhood. Change happened only when disease and decline occurred as part of the ageing process, or other illness or injury. They contended that once damage or injury impacted the brain, there was no hope of recovery or replacement. The brain was considered a machine with specific parts for specific functions and when parts of the machine broke, there was no possibility of adaptation or change.
However, since the late 1980s, researchers were demonstrating that the brain is capable of change. Norman Doidge, a research psychiatrist and psychotherapist in 2007, investigated and reported on stories of people whose brain changed its structure to accommodate the bodily changes.
How does your brain adapt?
Doidge met many brain scientists who showed that the physical structure of the brain changes with the activities and thoughts it performs: if one part fails, then other parts take over. When your brain loses function it can use other parts to take over that function.
He reported the experiences of a physical medicine specialist who works with musicians who can’t control their fingers to operate independently. Musicians who played a string instrument with two fingers gradually lost the ability to use each finger independently. Brain researchers explained that the brain developed a fused finger map to support only the two fingers working together. The specialist retrained the brain to enable the musicians to operate their fingers again separately. The treatment demonstrated that the therapy allowed the brain to ‘learn’ to have the fingers function independently again.
What does the research say about the changing brain?
You have probably been advised by your own medical professional to keep active and eat well. You have heard the expression: ‘Use it, or lose it’. A medical researcher, Michael Merzenich, paraphrases, ‘Brain neurons that fire together, wire together.’ His work determined that the brain adapts to new information and learning presented to it; that when you pick up a new skill or develop a new exercise regime, you are training your brain to be more active. Your memory, thinking and processing speed can be enhanced as you age.
U.S. research from Posit Science has published findings for controlled studies of older adults. Adults between the ages of 60 and 87 trained on an auditory memory program an hour a day, five days a week, for eight to ten weeks – a total of 40 to 50 hours of exercises. Before the training, the subjects functioned on average like typical 70 year olds on standard memory tests. After the training, they functioned like people in the broad 40-60 year old range. These improvements were still being demonstrated at the three month follow-up after the training. Effectively, many older adults can be trained to function as their younger counterparts.
How can you adapt your brain to new skills?
Your life expectancy now extends into your 80s. Merzenich suggests that the relatively placid time since your early adult years may have contributed to an apparent decline. He urges you take up learning a new language for example. It can be good for you to improve and maintain your memory generally. In particular, learning new languages requires an intense focus, and activates parts of the brain you may not have used for a long time. You can engage in other activities that require highly focussed attention will help your memory. Learn new physical activities that require concentration, solving challenging puzzles, or making a career change that required mastery of new skills and materials.
You can visit sites such as Posit Science, Happy Neuron or other brain game sites for exercises and games for auditory memory enhancement designed for older adults. These exercises rebuild a fading memory by focussing on what you can do and gradually encourage enhanced processing speed.
Can you develop or enhance your memory by yourself?
Are you ready to take on some of these brain exercises to improve your performance? Do you know where to start? What if help were available?
Contact us for a complimentary consultation to think about new ways to enhance your memory, thinking and processing speed. We work with you to discover what you want for your life. It will be the best 30 minutes you spend to get started on changing your brain: in other words, ‘to use it or lose it.’
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References
Doidge, N 2007, The brain that changes itself: stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science, Scribe, Victoria.
Happy Neuron: www.happy-neuron.com/brain-training
Posit Science: www.positscience.com
© 2010 Helene Strawbridge, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the Second Half Success material in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read: By Helene Strawbridge of Second Half Success. Please visit Helene’s web site at www.secondhalfsuccess.com.au for additional articles and resources. (Make sure the link is live if placed in an newsletter or in a web site.)
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