New Brain Game – Top Chimp!

We’re on a roll! Following the debut of Name Tag last month, we are now ready to release Top Chimp, a brain game that sharpens visual attention and trains working memory. We think it’s more fun than a barrel of…well, monkeys, but would love to have your feedback before the game becomes part of the regular set of brain exercises. Please find the game here http://games.lumosity.com/top_chimp.html and send any suggestions to games@lumosity.com.

The Biology of Learning

By Gregory Kellett, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at SFSU and UCSF, and science writer for Lumos Labs.

The field of neuroscience is just beginning to understand some of the physiological foundations of how we learn. The following is a basic breakdown of what we think we might know.

Learning is the process by which new knowledge or skills sticks to our brains.  Its functional “sticky” unit is the neuron. Neurons are cells specially adapted to communicate with each other. Everything we experience is reflected in the brain by neurons which communicate to form what are called neural networks.  These networks can be pictured as overlapping 3-D road maps which span brain regions responsible for processing everything from the bitter-sweet taste of dark chocolate to why your neighbor is such a grump. As we learn, these neural “road maps” interact and shift while also fading or strengthening in relation to our experiences.

Whether it be recognizing a co-worker or changing a flat tire, learning entails the formation and strengthening of connections or synapses between neurons. Brief experiences typically leave connections tracing an ephemeral neural network. This might be envisioned as crisscrossing deer paths. Which, if left unused, fade quickly.

After repeated exposure to a learning experience, like the second time we change that flat tire, the associated neuronal connections are reinforced, resembling more a network of single lane country roads than deer paths.  And when it comes to daily practice and expertise in a skill, one can imagine that the guy at the local tire shop would have the neuronal equivalent of intersecting super-highways.

This strengthening of neural network connections is thought to be the physiological basis of learning.

Changing, strengthening and creating new neural networks tends to get more difficult with age. There is some research, however, indicating that it is possible to maintain our ability to learn, and possibly even ward off or lessen the impact of certain types of dementia. It appears that a significant amount of age related cognitive decline can be attributed to a tendency to stay within pre-established comfort zones; shying away from new and challenging experiences, which typically push the brain to grow (or at least not shrink as fast).

Here are some simple tips that could help maintain our brain’s ability to adapt.

• Stay Social- Reaching out and staying connected with friends and family engages the mind.

• Break a Sweat- It’s not only good for your body but your head as well.  Regular aerobic exercise is even capable of stimulating the formation of new neurons.

• Relax- Certain stress hormones are damaging to the brain in excess.

• Seek Challenges- Take that swing dance class, it’ll keep you on your toes in more ways than one. Do a variety of the Lumosity brain games – don’t just focus on your favorites.

• Eat Fruits and Veggies- You’ve heard it a million times before; this time it’s because they contain anti-oxidants and other substances protective of your head’s contents.

• Review Your Day- Take some evening time to review what you did, who you met, and what you read about. Start with the present and work your way back to breakfast or vice a versa.

Berkeley’s Mind Reader

By Lumos Labs Science Associate, Paul Li, MS Neuroscience.

Movies like Being John Malkovich are based on the idea that one might be able to experience what another human’s mind is visualizing. Most would think that such movies are pure fantasy and science fiction, but researchers at U.C. Berkeley are one step closer to making this a reality.

Using a computational model calibrated to each individual subject, Professor Jack Gallant and his research team were able to use brain activity (measured with fMRI) to identify which of a large set of images was seen by a subject. Importantly, none of the images in the set had been previously seen by the subject, demonstrating the ability to generalize to novel situations. Though performance isn’t yet perfect, it’s impressive. Accuracy ranges from 80% when viewing 1,000 images, to 90% accuracy when viewing 120 images.

Dr. Gallant said, “there may theoretically be sufficient information available to decode memory, imagery and dreams some day, but it will likely be many decades before this is really possible.”

Working memory and neurogenesis at the Bay Area Neuroscience Gathering

By Lumos Labs Science Associate Paul Li, MS Neuroscience.

Last Friday afternoon, UCSF held their annual Bay Area Neuroscience Gathering (BANG) where local grad students and neuroscientists showcased their research posters to the Bay Area neuroscience community. Universities included UCSF, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State and Stanford. Lumos Labs presented an investigation into web-based experimentation and cognitive training.

Though not many posters were directly related to brain health, I wanted to report the ones that were of relevance and of possible interest to you:

Wesley Clapp, PhD at UCSF found subjects consolidate information differently in their working memory when they know they will face distractors than without any distractors present. They looked at two electroencephalography (EEG) signals that are associated particularly with memory, attention, and perception: the P100 and the N170 (these are electrical signals from the brain that occur at 100 and 170 milliseconds after the event has happened). Clapp and colleagues found that these latencies are modulated differently depending on if the information presented to the subject is relevant or not. He also showed that the amount subjects pay attention to irrelevant information directly correlates with their impairment in working memory performance. To learn more, see Clapp’s research poster.

Leslie Meltzer, a Ph.D student working with Karl Deisseroth at Stanford is studying the effects of antidepressants in rodent models of depression. Meltzer and colleagues found that the therapeutic effects of antidepressants required the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory formation. This suggests that antidepressants might improve mood by increasing the production of new neurons. During Alzheimer’s disease, neurons in the hippocampus begin to die. Could antidepressants be helpful for fighting off dementia? It’s possible, but there are too many unknowns to have a clear picture. Bear in mind that a combination of mental and physical exercises, the types of food we eat, and social activities we do all matter in shaping the condition of our brain.

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.

Brain processing speed and intelligence

There seems to be some confusion about what we mean by ‘processing speed’. Even among scientists and others in the field there are a variety of understandings of the concept, spanning from the speed of neuron-to-neuron communication to how quickly one can access stored memories. In this article, neuroscientist Lizzie Buchen explains brain processing speed and why speed of processing is critical to many other cognitive processes and even intelligence.

Some of the key points covered:

• The speed of performing basic cognitive operations is highly correlated with measures of intelligence.
• Processing speed may affect performance on all higher cognitive tasks
• Decreases in processing speed may be the primary factor underlying cognitive changes that arise with age

Although there may not be one single factor underlying “intelligence,” processing speed and efficiency are among the most basic and pervasive components. Other factors, including working memory and executive functions, are also likely to be involved.

Neuroscience Conference 2007

I spent the past several days at the huge (~32,000 attendees this year) Society for Neuroscience Conference (SFN) in San Diego. This annual meeting of neuroscientists is an opportunity to learn about the latest brain-related research going on throughout the world, and for each scientist to show off their own findings.

The sheer volume of people and presentations at SFN can be overwhelming, but here are some interesting tidbits:

• Kirk Erickson from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that exercising rats were faster learners than sedentary rats. And more running is better: The animals that ran the most also became the best at learning and memory. (Abstract: search for “voluntary exercise enhances place learning”)

• Ken Nakayama presented data from over 22,000 people of various ages showing how the ability to learn faces changes over the lifespan. He found that our ability to learn faces peaks at about age 30, and that it’s about the same at age 65 as it is at 16. (Abstract: search for “human face learning”)

• I presented research from Lumos Labs showing that the internet can be a good tool for conducting cognitive neuroscience research. Our methods of leveraging the internet for basic research and cognitive training are being used by collaborators to figure out how under-performing students can do better in school, and how chemobrain patients might recover their cognitive abilities. (Abstract: search for “using the web for behavioral research”)

Early Biomarker for Alzheimer’s?

By contributing author Paul Li, a neuroscience graduate student at Columbia.

Researchers from Stanford might have found a biological marker for Alzheimer’s disease via a simple blood test. This is exciting news given that it might predict the onset of the disease several years before the symptoms begin. The procedure involves examining 18 key proteins in the blood that are typical in Alzheimer’s patients. Preliminary tests have been 90% accurate at detecting the disease. Dr Susanne Sorensen, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said that “Early diagnosis is essential if we are ever to develop treatments that can change the course or halt the progression of dementia rather than just treat the symptoms.”