Mind360 Blog

Why fight back when you can play back? Indeed, with Alzheimer’s disease making the news headlines more frequently (a no-brainer considering this terrible disease is claiming so many victims), increasingly more organization are coming up with new ways to supposedly combat memory-loss problems.

Which methods actually help slow down or prevent the onset of memory loss is widely contested, unsurprisingly, though time will certainly tell which ones do indeed have any positive effects.

New Alzheimer’s Diagnosis Every 70 Seconds

According to The Alzheimer’s Association’s latest report, “5.3 million Americans are living with [Alzheimer’s] today, which translates into a new case of Alzheimer’s every 70 seconds. And as the oldest baby boomers are due to reach age 65 over the next two years, that rate will balloon by midcentury, so that someone will develop Alzheimer’s disease every 33 seconds.”

Read the entire article:

10 Things You Should Know About Alzheimer’s Disease

Strength in Numbers

While the general public is understandably skeptical about the various memory improvement games on the market - and other remedies claiming to stave off memory loss and other cognitive abilities - the number of new science-based enterprises entering the brain improvement game, like Mind360, is certainly a reason for hope.

Steve Daitch is the Social Media Manager at Mind360.com - a leading scientific brain training games developer for boosting your memory, attention, executive functions, reasoning, and other key cognitive skills. As a Mind360 visitor you simply select your own Personal Training Program, which comes complete with a personal coach and constant feedback to ensure your swift and visible progress.

With so many brain training game providers out there claiming to help improve your cognitive abilities, it’s hard to know which ones actually work, and if so, to what degree. But if there’s one thing most experts agree on, it is that challenging your brain to virtually any ‘workout’ is always a worthwhile exercise, and certainly can’t hurt.

Simply put, it all comes down to “using it or losing it.” But for brain training to be truly effective, especially over the long term, each person requires a personal training program designed to meet his or her individual needs. In other words, one size does not fit all.

Brain Games vs. Brain Training Games

What’s more, once a personal training program has been selected, it is imperative that the games prescribed are not merely brain games, or teasers, as the overwhelming majority on today’s market are, but rather scientifically designed brain ‘training’ games that deliver actual results.

Moreover, just as a professional athlete focuses on training particular physical skills and muscles individually, (i.e. a tennis player’s serve, forehand and backhand strokes, running etc.), another key to successful brain training requires focusing on a single cognitive area at a time, and within certain time limits.

Staying in Touch Requires Staying in Touch

Whether it’s training your memory, attention, executive functions, or other key cognitive abilities, new evidence is surfacing virtually everyday with respect to what works… and what doesn’t. Stay tuned to Mind360.com as we provide further ‘How to’ information on ways to effectively train your brain and improve your overall mental fitness for healthier day-to-day living.

Steve Daitch is the Social Media Manager at Mind360.com - a leading scientific brain training games developer for boosting your memory, attention, executive functions, reasoning, and other key cognitive skills. As a Mind360 visitor you simply select your own Personal Training Program, which comes complete with a personal coach and constant feedback to ensure your swift and visible progress.

Having difficulty paying attention? Forgetting where you put things? Wondering whether or not you may be ‘losing it’ mentally?

Relax; everybody experiences lapses in their various cognitive skills due to one reason or another, and often without any serious cause for concern.

But then again, what harm is there in having yourself checked out mentally from time to time, especially when there are a number of simple tests easily available to you?

Get a Head Start

Next time you visit your doctor, ask him or her to arrange for you to undergo any of the following tests to assess your current brain health. After all, a healthy body requires a healthy mind.

SIMPLE BRAIN HEALTH TESTS

Test of Variable Attention (T.O.V.A.)
Measures responses to visual stimulus. Includes scores for consistency, impulsivity, inattention, and response speed.

Weschler Memory Scale (WMS)
Tests brain recall abilities in four areas: working memory, verbal memory, immediate memory, and visual memory.

Millon IQ
Assesses four types of intelligence: abstract, emotional, creative, and perceptual.

Type and Temperament
Assesses behavioral temperament and personality.

Steve Daitch is the Social Media Manager at Mind360.com - a leading scientific brain training games developer for boosting your memory, attention, executive functions, reasoning, and other key cognitive skills. As a Mind360 visitor you simply select your own Personal Training Program, which comes complete with a personal coach and constant feedback to ensure your swift and visible progress.

The question on increasingly more people’s minds is: Do brain training games actually work?

According to a group of leading scientists recently organized by consumer watchdog Which? [the company name actually includes the '?'], Nintendo’s massively popular Brain Training game is “useless at helping players improve their memories.”

“If people enjoy using these games, then they should continue to do so – that’s a no-brainer,” says Which? editor Martyn Hocking. “But if people are under the illusion that these devices are scientifically proven to keep their minds in shape, they need to think again.”

There are brain games, and then there are…

Indeed the jury is still out regarding a number of claims made by regular brain game developers. But as more innovators like Mind360 attempt to meet the rapidly growing demand for brain games that actually train your cognitive skills, such as memory and executive functions, just to name a few, what’s important to keep in mind is that, at the end of the day, users will have the final say as to which games work and which are merely fun to play. 
 
 

New brain facts

Cognitive science is the study of the brain. It has given us new insight into how the brain works. It has also revealed countless new and interesting facts about the physical composition of the brain as well, interesting facts that you probably didn’t know.

Our information superhighway

For instance, did you know the weight of the brain is about 3 lbs? Or that the brain is made up of about 75% water? You have heard of neurons, and probably know that they are the circuit stations of the brain, but did you know that the brain has about 100 million of them? And of those 100 million, each is linked to 1,000 to 10,000 synapses to convey information around the brain.

No hard feelings

And remember the “brain” scene in the movie Hannibal? Well, that was physically possible, because there are no pain receptors in the brain, so the brain can feel no pain. Yikes!

Why we are smarter

Further, the brain has physical characteristics that make us smarter as humans. At 2% of body weight, the human brain comprises the largest percentage of body weight of any organism.

High maintenance

It takes a lot of blood to keep that brain going: there are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain. It also takes a lot of oxygen: up to 20% of the total oxygen in your body (remember, the brain only weighs three pounds).

Protective padding

Ever wonder why we can hit our heads without damaging our brains? Well, there is a lot of padding: the human brain is the fattest organ in the body, with up to 60% fat composition.

The changing brain

A newborn baby’s brain grows to about three times its size at birth in its first year. The brain stops growing at age 18.

Whole brains

And you know that myth that we only use 10% of our brains? Well that is far from true: every part of our brain has a known function.

Memory lag

Did you ever think that traveling could affect your memory? Well, science has learned that frequent jet lag can impair memory due to stress hormones.

The champ

Did you know there is a recognized global memory champion? His name is Ben Pridemore, and his claim to fame is memorizing 96 historical events in 5 minutes and memorizing a single, shuffled deck of cards in 26.28 seconds. Sound strange? Well, everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame somehow. Do you remember who said that? Good, your brain is still working!

More fun and interesting facts

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Want to learn more fun facts about the brain? Here are 100 fascinating facts you never knew about the human brain.

The mellow elderly

Many elderly people seem sweet and happy, don’t they? Well, it is not your imagination. Science confirms that they are for a very specific reason.

Negative memory reduction

A research project between members of Alberta and Duke Universities reveals that brain activity in older people specifically causes them to remember fewer negative events than younger people. Further, the events they do remember do not seem so bad, or strike as much of a negative emotional reaction as in younger people.

Changes in brain activity

This is because seniors actually use their brains differently than younger people in storing memory, according to the scientist heading the study. Age related changes were discovered in elderly brain activity when participants of an average age of 70 years old were shown images of either neutral or strongly negative events.

Changes in interaction within the brain

The study, just published this month in the December edition of Psychological Science, clarified that there was no structural change in the emotional center of the brain among the different age groups. The emotional reaction in the elderly is altered as a result of changes in how those emotional centers interact with other parts of the brain such as memory.

Less stress

Another related effect is that when elderly people do remember negative events they are clinically proven to tend to view them as less stressful than younger people do. As far as negative images and memories are concerned, research observed a generally lower response in older people.

The older the memory, the better

In other words, it’s true: we don’t just mellow with age, we get happier.

Many of you have probably heard that the French propensity for drinking wine has been scientifically proven to reduce heart disease. Well first of all, it’s true. Second of all, that cup of red wine can also help keep Alzheimer’s away, as well as tumors.

A team of researchers at UCLA recently set to work to find out how this could be possible. This is what they discovered: naturally occurring compounds in red wine called polyphenols were clearly observed under microscope blocking the proteins that give rise to toxic plaques that destroy braincells.

For those with existing plaques (sorry, could be anyone, comes with age), polyphenols reduce the toxicity of those plaques, thus reducing the amount of cognitive deterioration that the plaques can otherwise cause.

For those of you who actually don’t like a nice glass of red wine, there are still more options: large quantities of many polyphenols show up in high concentration in tea, nuts, berries and some plants.

Anybody who wants to know more, don’t worry! That same team of doctors is beginning human trials to observe the effects of various forms and quantities of the over 8000 types of polyphenols. The goal is to determine what substances are best for people to consume to battle, prevent, or offset Alzheimer’s. And as soon as they know, you’ll know, because we are going to post immediately. So check back and stay tuned!