Brain training in the news

Brain fitness and cognitive training articles appearing in the past few weeks have prominently featured Lumos Labs. Here are a few of our favorite:

Reader’s Digest: HealthSmart

Dominic Cadden writes about his experience completing the Lumosity training program.

Fox News: Website of the Day

Check out Doug Delony’s broadcast of Lumosity: “Games for a happy Friday”

New Scientist

Graham Lawton did an excellent assessment of the current state of the science behind brain training products.

Women’s Health Mag

Tips to avoid forgetting and losing stuff – Lumosity helps you avoid losing memory itself.

The Color Blind Advantage

I used to think I had Ted Williams-caliber vision (a doctor said that, and it was memorable for a 10-yr old aspiring baseball player). When dreams of baseball stardom started to seem less likely, I began to think I’d make a good pilot. Though I’ve long since chosen a different direction, I still took pride in having a top-notch visual system.

And then I discovered at the age of 28 that I’m colorblind. How did that go undetected for so long? Well, it’s not that I can’t detect colors – I can differentiate and name them well enough – but when given a color blindness test like the one below, I fail miserably.

Can you read the number in this circle?

For most people, the number “74″ jumps off the page, distinct and obvious – but not for those who are color blind. I see a “21″, and someone with more severe color blindness won’t see any numbers.

Color blindness is most often due to missing 1 or more of the 3 different types of cells that detect colors (aka “photoreceptors”) found in a normal eye. Each photoreceptor is tuned to respond to a different wavelength of light, and your brain can interpret their responses by combining the information from each type of photoreceptor, ideally leading to the perception of a vast array of colors.

I’m likely short on 1 type of photoreceptor making me red-green color blind, but it didn’t take long to uncover a rationale suggesting that colorblindness could be an advantage!

In WWII analysis of aerial photographs, teams that included color-blind people were more successful. Color-blind individuals were able to detect unusual patterns in ways that normal-vision people couldn’t.

And more recently, researchers from the University of Calgary showed that color-blind monkeys are better at hunting insects. The monkey’s without color vision caught more insects, presumably because they could see through the insects’ camouflage. Evolutionary speculators have suggested that a group of hunters that contained at least one person who is color blind would be more successful, and so this trait might continue to be selected for in a portion of the population.

It seems that under some circumstances colors can be distracting and actually detract from our ability to see subtle variations in texture and brightness. While it may still be more desirable to have full color vision, the 10% of males who are color blind do have some consolation: We will never starve for lack of camouflaged insects.

More on color vision

T-Shirt Design Contest: Last Day!

If you’ve been working on a design for the T-Shirt competition, now is your chance to send it to Lumosity.

The competition ends on tonight at midnight!

It’s easy to submit. Just email your design to info@lumosity.com.

The winner, runner-up, and all finalists will receive prizes. Submissions need to be received by February 12th at midnight PST. Readers will vote from the finalists to select the winning design.

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

By guest expert Dr. Cynthia Green, Ph.D., a nationally recognized expert in brain health and president of Memory Arts LLC.

I was once asked if there is one thing that everyone could do to improve memory. Luckily, there was an easy answer. If we only paid better attention to things that we want to retain, we would remember them better.

Of course, improving attention is not quite as easy as it sounds. Let’s face it, life is full of distractions. After all, we have many things competing for our awareness. Think about how many times you’ve been interrupted – or have interrupted yourself – over the past hour alone. Perhaps you got a snack, checked email or took a phone call. In the time that I’ve been working on this piece alone I’ve had to answer the door, help my son edit a paper, and of course constantly check email so I don’t miss anything life altering (hey, you never know). On top of these tempting distractions, add other attention zappers, such as how we sleep, what we eat, if we are stressed or anxious – just a few of the lifestyle factors that may also mire our attention. Finally, aging can contribute to the problem, since as we grow older it can be harder for us to sustain attention. Rarely, however, do we consider how truly essential attention is to memory. So that we go around complaining that we can do difficult work tasks just fine but forget simple things, like brushing our teeth (yuck) or what we went into the other room to get.

Building attention can do wonders for your memory performance. Why? Well, consider for a moment what it takes to remember. First we have to learn, or acquire, things that we want to recall later. After all, if you want to know something, you first have to get it. And that acquisition process requires – you’ve got it – attention. You can start building better attention and focus by:

• Increase Your Awareness. Be aware when you want to remember something later. Then stop and focus your attention in that moment, so you more effectively get the information.
• Build Your Attention. Playing games that challenge your attention and focus can help build your attention capacity. Games, like those in Lumosity’s brain fitness training program, force you to stay focused and think quickly to do well.
• Pay Attention to How You Live. Daily factors such as fatigue, poor diet, anxiety, and stress can really drain your attention. Take the time to think about how things may be affecting your attention day to day. You can boost your attention and therefore your memory simply by leading a lifestyle that supports healthy attention function.
• Stop Overtasking. The human brain is still, well, human. There is only so much we can handle at one time. Protect your attention and your time getting better attention habits. For example, I recently set my email so that it only checks for new messages every 30 minutes. This gives me longer chunks of time without the distraction of messages, which invariably are NOT life altering. Put “Do Not Disturb” signs up at work when working on things which require concentration. Try rewarding yourself with a favorite distraction (a game, a trip to the water cooler) once you’ve completed a task.

In fact, now that I’ve finished this column, I think it’s time to refill my water bottle. So go forth and pay attention to your attention – it will help you remember better.

Dr. Green

Brain Health 101: You Heard What?

By guest expert Dr. Cynthia Green, Ph.D., a nationally recognized expert in brain health and president of Memory Arts LLC.

“Why am I having trouble remembering?” “Is there a special diet to boost my brain power?” We asked and you delivered. Thanks to everyone who wrote in with questions for the new “Ask the Expert” column. I’ll be covering the topics you’ve raised in these first few entries.

As an expert in memory and brain function, I have found that there are some commonly held misconceptions out there about memory. Holding onto these “memory myths” gets in the way when we want to boost our brain power. So, as a “kick off” for our conversation on brain health, lets debunk some of these fallacies, starting with a few of my favorites*:

• The “Secret Handshake” Fallacy. What does it take to have a great memory? Some folks believe that folks who have a great memory have been given access to a great secret, much like those folks in the Masons, who proved their membership through a “secret handshake.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone can improve their memory performance. How? Simply by practicing healthy brain habits.
• The “Memory Cure” Fallacy. Perhaps you’ve heard that caffeine is good for your memory. Or estrogen, vitamin E, gingko biloba, choline, or even phosphatidylserine (ok that last one is fairly esoteric). Guess what – there is NO cure for your memory. Why? Because, if you are the average healthy adult without a diagnosis of a major memory disorder, your memory isn’t sick. What your brain really needs is a good workout, not a pill. And don’t let them tell you otherwise.
• The “If It’s Broke, You Can’t Fix It” Fallacy. “I have a terrible memory.” “I’ve never been able to remember names.” I hear this kind of negative memory talk all the time. Your memory isn’t broken. And all of us (in the absence, again, of a major memory disorder) can improve our memory just by practicing better brain health habits.

So what does it take to improve your recall and gain better brain health? Better brain health habits. Yes, it’s that simple. And that’s no secret. So what are those better brain habits? That’s what we’ll be focusing on here, so stay tuned.

Dr. Green

*For a complete list of my Favorite Fallacies about memory, see Step 1 in Total Memory Workout: 8 Easy Steps to Maximum Memory Fitness (Bantam Dell).

Ask the Expert: Introducing Dr. Cynthia Green

Got a question about memory or brain fitness? Cynthia Green, Ph.D., the nationally recognized expert on developing better memory and brain health, is here to help with the new Ask the Expert column.

Dr. Green began the Memory Enhancement Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she has been a faculty member since 1990. Her first book, Total Memory Workout: 8 Easy Steps to Maximum Memory Fitness, has already been published in 5 languages due to its general applicability for developing a more effective memory. Now, as president of Memory Arts, she continues to lecture and teach the practical principles of brain health.

Submit your cognitive queries as an email to us or as a comment below. Check back at the Brain Health blog for Dr. Green’s expert responses to the most interesting and frequently asked questions.

[Update: Dr. Green has addressed some of your questions in Brain Health 101.]

Are you smarter than a chimp?

Ayumu, a 7-year old chimp living in a lab at Kyoto University, was in the news the last month for his remarkable cognitive performance. In a test of working memory, Ayumu and 5 other chimpanzees were able to outclass college students. Watch him go at it here.

Have you got what it takes to outsmart a chimp? Pit your wits against Ayumu in the Chimp Game.

Fun stuff that’s good for your brain #7: Humor and Laughter

By contributing author Aimee Fountain, who splits her time between Lumos Labs and teaching at American River College.

So this man walks into a bar…

You’ll get unique – and potentially beneficial – activity in your brain if you think something is funny…and maybe even if you don’t, as long as you laugh. While extensive research has been done on the brain mechanisms of negative emotions like depression, fear and anger, positive emotions are often overlooked with the rationale “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” New studies on how humor and laughter influence the brain are leading to an understanding of how positive emotions (and even their simulation) affect brain mechanisms, and this research has provided a broader perspective on new therapies for emotion disorders and pain.

When people were subjected to a battery of jokes and comics, images of their brain activity showed a sort of laugh belt in the brain, running through parts of the frontal lobe, which is important for cognitive processing; the supplementary motor area, important for movement; and the nucleus accumbens, associated with pleasure. Proof of the supplementary motor area’s role in laughter was found accidentally while using electrical stimulation to search for the cause of a young girl’s seizures. Electrically stimulating her motor area triggered laughter.

No longer content to amuse themselves by poking patients’ supplementary motor areas, scientists are attempting to use their findings to determine how humor processing may tie to disease. For example, researchers are examining brain activity in depressed people to see if their humor processing ability is impaired. If it is, then boosting the system’s activity may help depression. Humor seems to give people a natural high since it activates the same reward centers in the brain as euphoric drugs. Also, evidence suggests that viewing funny videos can reduce feelings of pain, relax muscle tension, and prevent negative stress reactions. Beyond brain stimulation, the rest of the body also gets a lift from laughter. Muscles are coordinated. Blood pressure and heart rate are increased. Breathing patterns change. Catecholamine and hormone levels are reduced. And the immune system is boosted. Even faked laughter helps the brain and body. While the conscious mind knows that false laughter is just that, the body can’t tell the difference, and endorphins are released and the physiological benefits occur as they do during genuine mirth. So, when that terrible party guest comes and regales everyone with hilarious stories about his abhorrent dog, your politeness in laughing may benefit more than just your relationship.