On June 10th something wonderful happened, and the media
hasn't paid much attention yet. On that day, the National
Public Health Road Map to Maintaining Cognitive Health was
released by the CDC and the Alzheimer's Association. The
authors proposed a set of 44 actions to reach a lofty goal:
To maintain or improve the cognitive performance of all
adults accross America. This is great timing, given all the
research and media attention that this field is getting,
and the aging of the baby boomer population..
I want to first share with you the 10 top actions proposed
by this report, and then provide a quick glossary to
explain the key words that you will hear more and more when
discussing brain health.
Top recommendations:
1) To determine how diverse audiences think about cognitive
health and its associations with lifestyle factors. This
work has all-ready yielded in a phenomenal report on Baby
boomers' current opinion of Brain Health and Fitness, that
you can find in the website of the MetLife Foundation.
2) To disseminate the latest science to increase public
understanding of cognitive health and to dispel common
misconceptions. The discovery of lifelong neuroplasticity
and neurogenesis (see glossary below) has given us a new
positive view upon the human brain - This is still a
concept not many know of. "Use it or lose it" and "Use It
and Get More of It" needs to reach all people.
3) Help people understand the connection between risk and
protective factors and cognitive health. Protective factors
were well summarized in the MacArthur study of successful
aging: good nutrition, mental and physical exercise, stress
management and social engagement.
4) Assess the literature on risk factors (vascular risk and
physical inactivity) and related interventions for
relationships with cognitive health. As Dr. Marilyn S.
Albert at John Hopkins points it out: All the things that
we know are bad for your heart turn out to be bad for your
brain.
5) More clinical trials will be conducted to determine the
effect of reducing vascular risk factors on lowering the
risk of cognitive decline and improving cognitive function.
Recent findings presented at International Conference on
Prevention of Dementia are one big step in the right
direction.
6) Further, more research will be conducted on other areas
potentially affecting cognitive health such as nutrition,
mental activity, and social engagement.
7) The last research focus is on determining the effect of
physical activity on reducing the risk of cognitive decline
and improving cognitive function.
8) The government will develop a population-based
surveillance system to measure the public health burden of
cognitive impairment in the United States.
9) Initiate policy changes at the federal, state, and local
levels to promote cognitive health by engaging public
officials.
10) Brain Fitness will be included in Healthy People 2020,
a set of health objectives for the nation that will serve
as the foundation for state and community public health
plans.
This initiative will help people of all ages take more
control of our brain health in the same way we care about
our nutrition and body health.
Now let's review some of the most relevant concepts in this
field. This vocabulary will become familiar to all of us
during the next years::
Brain Fitness: the general state of good, sharp, brain and
mind, especially as the result of mental and physical
exercise and proper nutrition.
Brain Fitness Program: structured set of brain exercises,
usually computer-based, designed to train specific brain
areas and functions in targeted ways, and measured by brain
fitness assessments.
Chronic Stress: ongoing, long-term stress. Continued
physiological arousal where stressors block the formation
of new neurons and negatively impact the immune system's
defenses.
Cognitive training: variety of brain exercises designed to
help work out specific "mental muscles". The principle
underlying cognitive training is to help improve "core"
abilities, such as attention, memory, problem-solving,
which many people consider as fixed.
Cognitive Reserve: theory that addresses the fact that
individuals vary considerably in the severity of cognitive
aging and clinical dementia. Mental stimulation, education
and occupational level are believed to be major active
components of building a cognitive reserve that can help
resist the attacks of mental disease.
fMRI: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a
non-invasive neuroimaging technique that enables
researchers see images of changing blood flow in the brain
associated with neural activity. This allows images to be
generated that reflect which structures are activated (and
how) during performance of different tasks.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): yoga and
meditation practices designed to enable effective responses
to stress, pain, and illness.
Neurogenesis: the process by which neurons are created all
throughout our lives.
Neuroplasticity: the brain's ability to reorganize itself
by forming new connections throughout life.
PubMed: very useful tool to search for published studies.
"PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of
Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from
MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical
articles back to the 1950s."
Working memory: the ability to keep information current for
a short period while using this information. Working memory
is used for controlling attention, and deficits in working
memory capacity lead to attention problems. Recent research
has proven that working memory training is possible and
helpful for people with ADD/ ADHD.
Exciting times ahead! We should all be looking forward what
science will bring us to help develop and grow gracefully
as we age.
----------------------------------------------------
Alvaro Fernandez is the CEO and Co-Founder of SharpBrains,
which provides the latest science-based information for
Brain Health and Brain Exercise, and reviews programs such
as MindFit, Posit Science, emWave, IntelliGym, Cogmed, and
more. Dozens of publications, such as Scientific American
Mind, CBS, Forbes, MSNBC, Seattle Times, New York Post,
have highlighted SharpBrains website and information. Check
http://www.sharpbrains.com/hottopics .
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