NEUROBICS: The New Science of Brain Exercise

The first time you forget the name of a person you should
know, a movie title, or an important meeting, you’re likely to
exclaim—only half-jokingly—”I’m losing it! My brain is
turning to Jell-O.” Reinforced by messages and images in the
mass media, you equate mild forgetfulness with the first
stages of accelerating mental decline.

And maybe they do remember it’s Tony Roberts. But if they
don’t, you become frustrated and preoccupied trying to recall
this buried name. Usually beginning in your forties or fifties—
sometimes even in your thirties—you start to notice these
small lapses: not remembering where you put the car keys or
what was on the grocery list you left at home.. .or being unable
to understand the instructions for a new VCR or computer. . .
or forgetting where the car is parked because you left the mall
through a different door.

Even though these small lapses don’t actually interfere
much with daily life, the anxiety they provoke can. You worry
that you’ll become just like your Aunt Harriet, who can remember details of events from the Depression but not what she
did yesterday. Firsthand experiences with people who have difficulty with perception and memory as they age can make you
anxious when you suddenly forget something ordinary. No
wonder you jump to the conclusion that aging is an inevitable
slide into forgetfulness, confusion, or even the first stages of
Alzheimer’s disease.

The good news, however, is that mild forgetfulness is not
a disease like Alzheimer’s and action can be taken to combat
it. Recent brain research points to new approaches that can
be incorporated into everyday activities to develop and maintain
brain connections. By adopting these strategies, you may
actually enhance your brain’s ability to deal with declines in
mental agility.

There are numerous myths about the aging brain that
neuroscientists are disproving daily. With the help of exciting
N E U R O B I C S new technologies, the traditional view of the way the brain
ages is being rapidly revised. Evidence clearly shows that the
brain doesn’t have to go into a steep decline as we get older.
In fact, in 1998, a team of American and Swedish scientists
demonstrated for the first time that new brain cells are generated in adult humans. 1

Also contrary to popular belief, the mental decline most
people experience is not due to the steady death of nerve cells.2
Instead, it usually results from the thinning out of the number
and complexity of dendrites, the branches on nerve cells that directly
receive and process information from other
nerve cells that forms the basis of memory. Dendrites receive information
across connections called
synapses. If connections aren’t regularly
switched on, the dendrites can atrophy. This reduces the brains
ability to put new information into memory
as well as to retrieve old information.

Growing dendrites was long thought to be possible only
in the brains of children. But more recent work has shown
that old neurons can grow dendrites to compensate for losses?
Other experiments show that neural circuits in adult
brains have the capacity to undergo dramatic changes—an
ability scientists thought was lost after childhood. The aging
brain, however, continues to have a remarkable ability to grow,
adapt, and change patterns of connections.”

Discoveries like these are the basis of a new theory of
brain exercise. Just as cross training helps you maintain
overall physical fitness, Neurobics can help you take charge of
your overall mental fitness.

Neurobics aims to help you maintain a continuing level of
mental fitness, strength, and flexibility as you age.

The exercise program calls for presenting the brain with
nonroutine or unexpected experiences using various combinations
of your physical senses—vision, smell, touch, taste, and
hearing—as well as your emotional “sense.” It stimulates patterns
of neural activity that create more connections between
different brain areas and causes nerve cells to produce natural
brain nutrients, called neurotrophins, that can dramatically
increase the size and complexity of nerve cell dendrites.5
Neurotrophins also make surrounding cells stronger and more
resistant to the effects of aging.

Neurobics is very different from other types of brain exercise, which
usually involve logic puzzles, memory exercises,and solitary practice
sessions that resemble tests. Instead,
Neurobic exercises use the five senses in novel ways to enhance
the brain’s natural drive to form associations between
different types of information. Associations (putting a name
together with a face, or a smell with a food, for example) are
the building blocks of memory and the basis of how we learn.
Deliberately creating new associative patterns is a central part
of the Neurobic program.

Putting together the neuroscience findings
with what scientists already know about our senses led
directly to our concept of using the associative power of the five
senses to harness the brain’s ability to create its own natural
nutrients. In short, with Neurobics you can grow your own
brain food—without drugs or diet.

The word Neurobics is a deliberate allusion to physical exercise.
Just as the ideal forms of physical exercise emphasize using
many different muscle groups to enhance coordination and flexibility,
the ideal brain exercises involve
activating many different brain areas
in novel ways to increase the range
of mental motion. For example, an
exercise like swimming makes the
body more fit overall and capable
of taking on any exercise. Similarly,

Neurobics makes the brain more agile and flexible overall so it
can take on any mental challenge, whether it be memory, task
performance, or creativity. That’s because Neurobics uses an
approach based on how the brain works, not simply on how to
work the brain.