Category: Boost Brain Power

The strange power of a virtual body swap.

Ordinary people who are made to feel like the great physicist Albert Einstein in virtual reality do get smarter.

Those with low self-esteem respond particularly well to being ’embodied’ as Einstein by showing the greatest improvements on cognitive tests.

People with low self-esteem likely have the most to gain by seeing themselves in a better light.

Imagining yourself as someone brilliant may unlock previously untapped cognitive resources.

Professor Mel Slater, study co-author, explained:

“Virtual reality can create the illusion of a virtual body to substitute your own, which is called virtual embodiment.

In an immersive virtual environment, participants can see this new body reflected in a mirror and it exactly matches their movements, helping to create a powerful illusion that the virtual body is their own.”

Having a virtual body different to your own can have striking psychological effects.

In one previous study, white people given a virtual black body showed less stereotyping of black people.

Professor Slater said:

“We wondered whether virtual embodiment could affect cognition.

If we gave someone a recognizable body that represents supreme intelligence, such as that of Albert Einstein, would they perform better on a cognitive task than people given a normal body?”

For the study, 30 young men took part in the virtual embodiment experiment.

Those who saw themselves as Einstein had a reduced unconscious stereotype against older people.

Those with low self-esteem saw the greatest improvements in their cognitive skills.

Professor Slater concluded:

“It is possible that this technique might help people with low self-esteem to perform better in cognitive tasks and it could be useful in education,”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Banakou et al., 2018).

Brain scans revealed more efficient processing during cognitive tasks.

Playing a musical instrument and learning another language both make your brain more efficient.

Bilingual people and musicians both use fewer brain resources when doing a memory task.

Dr Claude Alain, the study’s first author, said:

“These findings show that musicians and bilinguals require less effort to perform the same task, which could also protect them against cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia.

Our results also demonstrated that a person’s experiences, whether it’s learning how to play a musical instrument or another language, can shape how the brain functions and which networks are used.”

It is well-known to researchers that bilinguals and musicians have better memories, but the reason was a mystery.

The study scanned the brains of musicians, bilinguals and English-speaking non-musicians while they performed various cognitive tasks.

Dr Alain said:

“People who speak two languages may take longer to process sounds since the information is run through two language libraries rather than just one.

During this task, the brains of bilinguals showed greater signs of activation in areas that are known for speech comprehension, supporting this theory.”

The study was published in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (Alain et al., 2018).

Which types of exercise can help keep the brain healthy?

Almost any type of exercise can help improve cognitive performance, a review of 98 studies finds.

From yoga and tai chi to walking, running, cycling and weight lifting, all help maintain a sharp mind over the years.

Individuals who did at least 52 hours of these exercises across six months saw the greatest benefits, the review of thousands of separate studies found.

That works out to 2 hours a week.

The exercise was beneficial to both healthy older adults and those with mild cognitive impairment.

Dr Joyce Gomes-Osman

“While there is solid evidence to suggest that maintaining a regular exercise regimen can improve brain health we were most interested in how we could practically apply these scientific findings to the lives of our patients, their family members and even to ourselves.

For other forms of treatments such as prescription drugs, patients are prescribed a specific amount.

Our study highlights the need to get this specific with exercise, too.”

The conclusions come from a review of 4,600 different studies, from which 98 high quality trials were analysed.

The results suggested that consistent exercise over a long period was the key to maintaining healthy cognitive function.

Professor Alvaro Pascual-Leone, study co-author, said:

“It’s very encouraging that the evidence supports all sorts of different exercise interventions, not just aerobic, to improve thinking abilities.

The most stable improvements in thinking abilities were found in processing speed, both in healthy older adults and individuals with mild cognitive impairment.”

Strength training, aerobic workouts and mind-body exercises or any combination thereof, were found to be helpful.

Dr Gomes-Osman said:

“We are still learning about all the ways in which exercise changes our brain, and we are also all different, so identifying an ideal exercise dose remains a challenge.

We have many more questions about exercise dose, and we will design further studies to follow up.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology: Clinical Practice (Gomes-Osman et al., 2018).

A simple 8-minute exercise can free up your brain and make you more efficient under stress.

Writing about your feelings can help your brain work more efficiently, research finds.

For people who are chronic worriers, this method can help free up a lot of cognitive resources.

Mr Hans Schroder, the study’s first author, said:

“…it’s kind of like people who struggle with worry are constantly multitasking — they are doing one task and trying to monitor and suppress their worries at the same time.

Our findings show that if you get these worries out of your head through expressive writing, those cognitive resources are freed up to work toward the task you’re completing and you become more efficient.”

In the study, one group of chronic worriers wrote about their deepest feelings for eight minutes before they did a stressful task.

They were compared to a group who wrote about what they had done the previous day.

Scans revealed that the brains of those who had expressed their emotions worked more efficiently under stress.

Dr Jason Moser, study co-author, said:

“Here, worried college students who wrote about their worries were able to offload these worries and run more like a brand new Prius, whereas the worried students who didn’t offload their worries ran more like a ’74 Impala — guzzling more brain gas to achieve the same outcomes on the task.”

Studies have shown repeatedly that expressive writing can be useful for dealing with stressful events in the past.

This study, though, suggests it can help people deal with upcoming stressful events.

Dr Moser said:

“Expressive writing makes the mind work less hard on upcoming stressful tasks, which is what worriers often get “burned out” over, their worried minds working harder and hotter.

This technique takes the edge off their brains so they can perform the task with a ‘cooler head.'”

The study was published in the journal Psychophysiology (Schroder et al., 2017).

The herb has been used for thousands of years by humans.

The scent of rosemary can improve cognitive performance, making people faster and more accurate, research finds.

Rosemary is a very popular herb in the Mediterranean region, with many dishes cooked with fresh leaves.

Extract of rosemary has long been used by humans, going back to ancient Egyptian civilisations.

For the study, 20 people were exposed to varying amounts of 1,8-cineole, the main component of rosemary.

The results showed that the more 1,8-cineole they had in their bloodstream, after inhaling it, the faster and more accurate they were on cognitive tests.

The study’s authors explained the results:

“Here we show for the first time that performance on cognitive tasks is significantly related to concentration of absorbed 1,8-cineole following exposure to rosemary aroma, with improved performance at higher concentrations.

Furthermore, these effects were found for speed and accuracy outcomes, indicating that the relationship is not describing a speed–accuracy trade off. “

Volatile 1,8-cineole is also found in many other aromatic plants, such as bay, wormwood, sage and eucalyptus.

The plants use the essential oil to deter herbivores and to attract predators of herbivores.

The component of rosemary also made people’s mood slightly worse — perhaps because not everyone appreciates the smell.

Dr Mark Moss , the study’s first author, said:

“Only contentedness possessed a significant relationship with 1,8-cineole levels, and interestingly to some of the cognitive performance outcomes, leading to the intriguing proposal that positive mood can improve performance whereas aroused mood cannot.”

The study was published in the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology (Moss & Oliver, 2012).

Neurological health is improved when these muscle groups move more.

Using the leg muscles helps to grow healthy new brain cells, research discovers.

The legs do not just receive messages from the brain about when to move.

Leg movements — especially those bearing weight — send vital messages back to the brain.

The new brain cells created by movements of large muscle-groups in our legs help us deal with new challenges and adapt to stress.

The study provides an insight into why patients with diseases that limit their mobility can rapidly decline.

Dr Raffaella Adami, the study’s first author, said:

“Our study supports the notion that people who are unable to do load-bearing exercises — such as patients who are bed-ridden, or even astronauts on extended travel — not only lose muscle mass, but their body chemistry is altered at the cellular level and even their nervous system is adversely impacted.”

The conclusions come from a study in which mice’s hind legs were restricted in movement for 28 days.

This restricted the growth of new brain cells by 70%.

Dr Adami said:

“It is no accident that we are meant to be active: to walk, run, crouch to sit, and use our leg muscles to lift things.

Neurological health is not a one-way street with the brain telling the muscles ‘lift,’ ‘walk,’ and so on.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience (Adami et al., 2018).