X-Message-Number: 27880 From: "Hare, Tim R" <> Subject: FW: [CR] Maximizing the health of the aging brain Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:53:40 -0400 Cross post that may be of interest. Adult neural plasticity literature is worth examining per below. My wife and I have purchased the Positscience product and I'll report back on that at some stage, and I've become rather attached to the Nintendo product (I bring it out for a quick set of stimulating exercises during breaks at work -- while gaming, it looks as if I'm updating a hand-held for business reasons), and the on-line service MyBraintrainer is interesting, though the firewall at work can be annoying wrt to running tests and saving results. Cheers, T- -----Original Message----- From: The CR Society, a group of people practicing Calorie Restriction for health purposes. [mailto:] On Behalf Of Hare, Tim R Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 3:49 PM To: Subject: Re: [CR] Maximizing the health of the aging brain "You'll never think the same way again!" http://www.mybraintrainer.com/ "Extending brain-span to match life-span" http://www.positscience.com/ "For decades Nintendo has been exercising your thumbs. Now they're going to exercise your mind." http://www.brainage.com/launch/what.jsp Nootropics. Plenty of examples in the literature of compounds that stimulate neurite and/or axonal growth, or have been cited in association with some metric of working memory or computational speed. One might speculate that these would best be used in conjunction with the above, and the sort of approaches you outline below. I'd add learning to play an instrument, and read/compose music, to the list, below, as well as taking math courses such as calculus 1-3, differential equations, linear algebra, and learning various programming languages. -----Original Message----- From: The CR Society, a group of people practicing Calorie Restriction for health purposes. [mailto:] On Behalf Of Nerissa Belcher Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 5:54 AM To: Subject: [CR] Maximizing the health of the aging brain Hi everyone, I'm researching the effects of various things on brain health as we age. After all, of what use is it to live a long time if our brains don't go along for the ride? Consider this a preliminary report. Weight control Obesity is associated with decreasing brain function. (1) reports it is unknown whether obesity causes the problems with the brain or the brain problems happen first and induce obesity. Be this as it may I think it highly unlikely millions of people are developing brain problems which induce obesity. It is far, far more likely that obesity causes the problems. In which case CR should be quite protective of our brain functions as we age. Comment - anyone who thinks CR is not about weight loss has already incurred significant brain damage. Estrogen replacement (HRT) The literature is very confusing about whether this helps or harms the brains of women. (2) may explain it best. HRT for up to ten years seems to help. After that it may be harmful but with the highly interesting exception being the harm does not happen if the woman exercises regularly. My take on estrogen is based upon my experience on high dose estrogen. Estrogen enhances emotional range considerably and this is not a subtle effect. The effect is emotionally about like a nuclear bomb in power. What is slightly funny to a man is much funnier to a woman. What is slightly stressful to a man is much more stressful to a woman. I feel estrogen makes the brain have a higher degree of plasticity which is another way of saying it is less stable. Of course any married man could tell you that to be the case (couldn't resist!). Instability being good if things are done to push the brain in a positive direction. And bad if things are experienced to push it in a negative one. Exercise (3) shows exercise is great for both men and women in-so-far as brain functioning is involved. Of particular interest is from the full article it appears that the level of brain narcotics (opioids AKA beta-endorphins) is associated with brain health. In simple terms if we are happy regularly our brains will stay healthier. Other literature review (see archives) shows voluntary exercise , i.e. doing something we want to do, is beneficial and involuntary is less so, if at all. Friends (4) is extremely interesting. The benefits of a social network are so powerful that without one exercise is detrimental and with one it helps our brains. Stress control No links for this one since it is so glaringly obvious. Excessive chronic stress is horrible for our brains. Probably more so for women and particularly those on estrogen therapy. Use it or lose it Also well known so no links to support this. However, I do wish to introduce a concept I have. I suspect one of the best things we can learn to protect our brains is sign language. Combine 5, 6, 7 and you may come to the same conclusion. The theme of this is developing the ability to manipulate things in space is beneficial. Currently most exercise experts recognize four types of fitness: cardiovascular, flexibility, muscular strength and muscular endurance. These experts are really missing the boat on this one. Things which help us develop our balance ranging from dancing to kayaking are probably the most beneficial for our brains as we age of any exercises. Of course our CR surfing dudes, Kenton and Joe Dubiel, are the experts in this. Conclusion Since Cronies are already lean to protect our brains we need to focus on having fun with friends, doing regular exercise we enjoy and avoiding chronic stress. Consider learning sign language and taking up a sport/activity that involves a lot of balance activity. 1. Neuroimage. 2006 Mar 15 Brain abnormalities in human obesity: A voxel-based morphometric study. Pannacciulli N, Del Parigi A, Chen K, Le DS, Reiman EM, Tataranni PA. Obesity and Diabetes Clinical Research Section, Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, 4212 N. 16th St., Rm. 5-28, Phoenix, AZ 85016, USA. Obesity is accompanied by damage to several tissues. Overweight is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Whether structural abnormalities associated with excess body fat may also occur in the brain is unknown. We sought to determine to what extent excess body fat is associated with regional alterations in brain structure using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), a whole-brain unbiased technique based upon high-definition 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans normalized into a common standard space and allowing for an objective assessment of neuroanatomical differences throughout the brain. We studied 24 obese (11 male, 13 female; age: 32 +/- 8 years; body mass index [BMI]: 39.4 +/- 4.7 kg/m(2)) and 36 lean (25 male, 11 female; mean age: 33 +/- 9 years; BMI: 22.7 +/- 2.2 kg/m(2)) non-diabetic Caucasians. In comparison with the group of lean subjects, the group of obese individuals had significantly lower gray matter density in the post-central gyrus, frontal operculum, putamen, and middle frontal gyrus (P < 0.01 after adjustment for sex, age, handedness, global tissue density, and multiple comparisons). BMI was negatively associated with GM density of the left post-central gyrus in obese but not lean subjects. This study identified structural brain differences in human obesity in several brain areas previously involved in the regulation of taste, reward, and behavioral control. These alterations may either precede obesity, representing a neural marker of increased propensity to gaining weight, or occur as a consequence of obesity, indicating that also the brain is affected by increased adiposity. PMID: 16545583 2. Neurobiol Aging. 2006 Jan 4 Interactive effects of fitness and hormone treatment on brain health in postmenopausal women. Erickson KI, Colcombe SJ, Elavsky S, McAuley E, Korol DL, Scalf PE, Kramer AF. Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 405 N. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Department of Psychology, 603 East Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. Recent research in rodents suggests that extended and chronic hormone therapy can exacerbate memory impairments and irreversibly damage cells. However, aerobic fitness regimens have been shown to spare brain tissue and cognitive function. In addition, interactions between estrogen treatment and exercise have been reported in rodents. However, whether aerobic fitness and hormone treatments show interactive effects on human brain tissue and cognition has yet to be determined. Here we report two unique and important results: (a) HRT treatment up to 10 years in duration spares gray matter in prefrontal cortex and is associated with better performance on measures of executive function, whereas HRT treatment beyond 10 years in duration increases the degree of prefrontal deterioration and amplifies the decline on measures of executive functioning (b) higher fitness levels augment the effects of shorter durations of hormone treatment and ameliorate the declines associated with prolonged hormone treatment. PMID: 16406152 3. http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/staticContent/HTML/N0/l2/jpn/vol-31/issue-2/pdf /pg84.pdf 84 Rev Psychiatr Neurosci 2006;31(2) c 2006 CMA Media Inc. It has been hypothesized that a decrease in the synthesis of new neurons in the adult hippocampus might be linked to major depressive disorder (MDD). This hypothesis arose after it was discovered that antidepressant medications increased the synthesis of new neurons in the brain, and it was noted that the therapeutic effects of antidepressants occurred over a time span that approximates the time taken for the new neurons to become functional. Like antidepressants, exercise also increases the synthesis of new neurons in the adult brain: a 2.3-fold increase in hippocampal neurogenesis has been observed in rats with regular access to a running wheel when they are compared with control animals. We hypothesized, based on the adult-neurogenesis hypothesis of MDD, that exercise should alleviate the symptoms of MDD and that potential mechanisms should exist to explain this therapeutic effect. Accordingly, we evaluated studies that suggest that exercise is an effective treatment for MDD, and we explored potential mechanisms that could link adult neurogenesis, exercise and MDD. We conclude that there is evidence to support the hypothesis that exercise alleviates MDD and that several mechanisms exist that could mediate this effect through adult neurogenesis...... There are several candidate molecules that could play a role in exercise-induced increases in neurogenesis in the adult brain. To find candidate molecules, we screened the literature for molecules (a) whose levels were affected by exercise and (b) that had an effect on the growth of new neurons in the adult hippocampus. The following 4 molecules were selected: beta-endorphins, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and serotonin (5-HT). 4. Nat Neurosci. 2006 Apr;9(4):526-33. Epub 2006 Mar 12 Social isolation delays the positive effects of running on adult neurogenesis. Stranahan AM, Khalil D, Gould E. Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544. Social isolation can exacerbate the negative consequences of stress and increase the risk of developing psychopathology. However, the influence of living alone on experiences generally considered to be beneficial to the brain, such as physical exercise, remains unknown. We report here that individual housing precludes the positive influence of short-term running on adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus of rats and, in the presence of additional stress, suppresses the generation of new neurons. Individual housing also influenced corticosterone levels-runners in both housing conditions had elevated corticosterone during the active phase, but individually housed runners had higher levels of this hormone in response to stress. Moreover, lowering corticosterone levels converted the influence of short-term running on neurogenesis in individually housed rats from negative to positive. These results suggest that, in the absence of social interaction, a normally beneficial experience can exert a potentially deleterious influence on the brain. PMID: 16531997 5. http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/051103_signing_advantage.html Sign Language Improves Mental Abilities By Sara Goudarzi Special to LiveScience, posted: 03 November 2005 "Knowing Japanese may help you trade Yen on the Japanese stock market. Leading a safari tour in Kenya is much easier if you're well versed in Swahili. And knowledge of American Sign Language comes in handy when studying structural geology. Come again? Structural geologists have to visualize the bending, breaking and folding of rock formations that are usually motionless and firm. This often requires the processing of complex spatial information-something that individuals experienced in American Sign Language, or ASL, already do well, explained Michele Cooke, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Cooke's college students often struggle with structural geology, but when Cooke saw that those who are well versed in ASL grasp the spatial topics better, she thought there might be a connection...." 6. J Neurosci. 1997 Jul 1;17(13):5167-74 Brain aging: impaired coding of novel environmental cues. Tanila H, Sipila P, Shapiro M, Eichenbaum H. Department of Neuroscience and Neurology, University of Kuopio,70211 Kuopio, Finland. Studies of the spatial memory capacities of aged animals usually focus on performance during the learning of new environments. By contrast, efforts to characterize age-related alterations in spatial firing information processing by hippocampal neurons typically use an environment that is highly familiar to the animals. In the present study we compared the firing properties of hippocampal neurons in young adult and aged rats as they acquired spatial information about new environmental cues. Hippocampal complex spike cells were recorded while rats performed a radial arm maze task in a familiar environment and then recorded again after many of the spatial cues were changed. After the change in the environment, in aged rats 35-42% of place fields retained their original shape and location with respect to the maze center, although they usually rotated to another arm. By contrast, all place fields in young animals either disappeared or appeared in a new location. Some of the new place fields appeared in the new environment during the first 5 min of exploration, whereas others needed more than 30 min to develop fully. In the familiar environment spatial selectivity of place cells was similar in young and aged rats. By contrast, when rats were placed into a new environment, spatial selectivity decreased considerably in aged memory-impaired rats compared with that of young rats and aged rats with intact memory performance. PMID: 9185554 7. J Long Term Care Adm. 1993 Summer;21(2):8-9 Easing the pain of Alzheimer's with sign language. Smiley AC. Arizona Health Care Association. Arizona State University researchers spent four weeks teaching Alzheimer's patients at Hearthstone of Mesa sign language with surprizing results. PMID: 10171790 Nerissa -- Unsubscribe: www.tinyurl.com/yul6b then click "Leave the List" -- Notice: This e-mail message, together with any attachments, contains information of Merck & Co., Inc. (One Merck Drive, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, USA 08889), and/or its affiliates (which may be known outside the United States as Merck Frosst, Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD and in Japan, as Banyu) that may be confidential, proprietary copyrighted and/or legally privileged. It is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity named on this message. 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