"Scientists are reporting the first compelling evidence in people that cognitive training can boost levels of a brain chemical that typically declines with age. A 10-week study of people 65 or older found that doing rigorous mental exercises for 30 minutes a day increased levels of the chemical messenger acetylcholine by 2.3% in a brain area involved in attention and memory. The increase "is not huge," says Etienne de Villers-Sidani, a neurologist at McGill University in Montreal."
""But it's significant, considering that you get a 2.5% decrease per decade normally just with aging." So, at least in this brain area, cognitive training appeared to turn back the clock by about 10 years. The chemical change observed after intensive brain training is persuasive, says Michael Hasselmo, director of the Center for Systems Neuroscience at Boston University, who was not involved in the study. "It was compelling enough that I thought, 'Maybe I need to be doing this,'" he says."
People aged 65 or older engaged in 10 weeks of rigorous mental exercises, 30 minutes daily, which increased acetylcholine levels by 2.3% in a brain region tied to attention and memory. Normal aging typically reduces acetylcholine by about 2.5% per decade, so the change approximates reversing roughly ten years of decline in that region. Experts described the chemical change as persuasive and compelling. Prior animal work showed brain-stimulating environments elevate neurotransmitters, and prior human studies linked cognitive training to improvements in thinking and memory. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health amid widespread online brain-training programs and questions about their neural effects.
Read at www.npr.org
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