AARP Bulletin - April 2010

In the Know ; Opinion
Forget the myths. Stretch your mind, exercise and try new things
Put Your Brain to Work By Barbara Strauch
For years, scientists thought our brains lost as much as 30 percent of their neurons as we got older, an idea that led researchers to largely ignore the
brain as it aged. After all, why waste time researching
something that was going to decay on schedule no mat-
ter what we did?
Now, new research shows that, in fact, we keep most of
our brain cells for as long as we live. This means that the
quest for ways to maintain those cells is now being taken
up in earnest. But as this idea has emerged, so has the
hype. We are bombarded with ads and articles telling us
to eat blueberries, drink red wine, do crossword puzzles.
Does any of it work?
Luckily, science is beginning to sort out the beneficial
from the bogus. And there are a few things that do make
a difference.
Can specific foods help? The jury is still out. The problem is, with
our relatively good diets we already get most of the nutrients we
need. Not that science has given up. It’s true that foods that are high
in antioxidants—like blueberries and red wine—are, in theory, good for
brain repair. But it’s also true that we probably have to eat a barrow-
ful of blueberries to make a real difference. So researchers are trying
to develop a drug or pill that would give us that same boost. Meanwhile,
eating a healthy, varied diet remains the best advice.
The current star in brain science research is exercise. The brain is
much like the heart. It needs oxygen and blood flow. Not only does ex-
ercise pump blood through our brain’s blood vessels, but it also prompts
the creation of new brain cells, even at older ages.
Scientists at Columbia University and elsewhere have watched the
birth of new cells in the brains of animals and humans who have exer-
cised vigorously. Although it’s still unclear what the new brain cells do,

a leading neuroscientist, Fred Gage of the
Salk Institute in San Diego, believes they
help us better integrate and cope with the
new—from ideas to places to people—and
may even help ward off depression.
We now know that crossword puzzles are
not enough. To keep our brains sharp, we
need to move beyond just recalling infor-
mation we know (the main activity with
crossword puzzles) and instead push our
brains to actively embrace the new, an ef-
fort that will create and nourish new brain
connections. That means anything that
gets us out of our comfort zones: making
new friends, learning to play the cello, tak-
ing a new route to work, even confronting
ideas and people you disagree with. To stretch our
grown-up brains, we have to present them with
“disorienting dilemmas”—concepts that challenge
our view of the world, says one Columbia Univer-
sity Teachers College researcher.