Speaking of Psychology - Keeping your brain fit (SOP28)

Episode Date: August 17, 2015

Much like in our arms or legs, our brain’s “muscles” can rebuild and grow if they’re given the right exercise. In this episode, neuroscientist Tracey Shors talks about how her research has led her to explore links between physical and mental exercise. APA is currently seeking proposals for APA 2020, click here to learn more https://convention.apa.org/proposals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever thought about taking up a new sport, a new hobby, or maybe an instrument? If you're an adult, especially in middle age, learning new things is essential to keeping the brain fit. In this episode, we speak with a neuroscientist who is trying to not only prove the use it or lose it theory, but show us why keeping the body moving can also do our brains good. I'm Audrey Hamilton, and this is speaking of psychology. Tracy Shores is a distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, at Rutgers University. As a neuroscientist, she investigates how the brain learns and remembers.

And when it comes to the brain, she's discovering how important it is to use it or lose it. Welcome, Dr. Shores. Thank you. It's a pleasure to speak with you today. Your research focuses on something called neurogenesis. I have no idea. Can you explain what that means?

Yes. Neurgenesis is the production of new neurons in the brain. And of course, neurons are the major cells in the brain that are used to communicate. information. For many years, we didn't know that the brain continued to make new neurons after birth. However, about 10 or 15 years ago, it became clear that the brain does continue to produce these new neurons, and they're produced in a part of the brain known as the hippocampus. The hippocampus is involved in learning. So there's been a lot of work recently to show that

these cells are involved in learning and are certainly affected by learning. our brains fit seems to be a lot like exercising our bodies. Now you've found a way to combine mental and physical exercise. Can you talk about these exercises, also known as map training? What does map stand for? Sure. One of the things that's really interesting about these new neurons, not only that they exist in the first place, but they're also very responsive to conditions that people engage in in everyday life. So for example, the cells are produced. more cells are produced in response to aerobic exercise. So if this is a laboratory animal, a rat loves to run, and if it runs continuously,

it produces many more cells than it would otherwise produce if it was sedentary. We also know though that many of these cells, once they're born, they die. So the cells are generated, but then between two and three weeks after they're born, most of them perish through a process called program cell death. So one of the things that my laboratory has been interested in has been investigating for nearly a decade now is the effect of learning on these new neurons. And basically what we find is that animals that are trained to learn something new keep the cells alive.

If animals aren't trained to learn something new or if they're trained and they don't learn, the cells continue to die. So it really is an example of use it or lose it. So in the case of exercising your muscles, of course, you want to exercise your muscles to keep them to maintain their presence. In the same way with these new neurons, if you learn something new as long as it's challenging and you're successful at it, then the cells will survive.

We've also determined that the cells, once they're rescued from death, they remain indefinitely. So basically they become so-called incorporated into the rest of your brain. And so I kind of wanted to take some of this information and develop it into an intervention that could potentially help people. And so we devised this intervention.

It's called map training because it stands for mental and physical training. And we've been providing this intervention to several populations. Essentially what happens is our participants engage in 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and the idea is that we're increasing the number of new neurons in their brain during this process. And then they engage in 30 minutes of focused attention, meditation.

So as you probably know, meditation is a very effortful learning process. And we use a type of meditation where the participant sits in silence, and counts their breath. One of the reasons many meditation practices use the breath is because it's always present, it's always changing, and it's always accessible. So the participant starts counting their breath, and then when thoughts interfere,

and they start thinking about the past or the present or worrying about some event, they are instructed to return back to the breath. So this is a skill. I don't know if you've ever done it you know it's pretty difficult to do to maintain your attention but you can get better with practice so we find in the several populations that we've done this that this combination of aerobic exercise and mental training through meditation enhances their overall physical health so for example the amount of oxygen that they consume

and their bodies increase significantly we also find that there levels of depression are significantly reduced. Their levels of anxiety are significantly reduced. And perhaps most importantly or most impressive is the change in rumination. Rumination is this process where someone repeats memories or goes over things from the past over and over. And women in particular are particularly inclined to ruminate about the past. And so one of the things that this intervention seems to do is lessen that tendency. And that makes people happier and more present in their lives. You just mentioned women and how they tend to ruminate more.

What is your research shown regarding how women and men learn? Do they learn differently? They do learn differently. It's hard to make sweeping generalizations, partly because it's such a volatile subject, I would say. But there are some differences. Men tend to do better at spatial tasks. Women tend to do a little bit better in verbal-based tasks. In laboratory animals, we see fairly striking differences.

And I have to say, the good news for females, as females, rodents at least, tend to learn better than males. On many tasks. And one of the nice things is that then they rescue more of these new neurons. Yeah. I think the important thing about sex differences is to realize though, that these are differences in the distribution. And so any individual, obviously, we can't predict how well they would learn just based on their gender.

Well, once we appreciate sex differences in learning or other cognitive processes, we can apply those to sex differences in mental illness, for example. So one of the things I've always been intrigued by and concerned about is the tendency for women to express symptoms of depression and PTSD and anxiety. And they do so much more than men typically do. And so some of these processes that we're learning about, these cognitive processes, like rumination, for example, might contribute to these sex differences. Can you give me an example of something you do to keep your brain fit?

Meditation, or do you do brain exercises? I'm just curious as to how you take what you learn in your lab. and bring it out into your real life. I mean, being a scientist, actually, is pretty challenging. I was going to say, that's one big brain exercise. It is a good exercise. And it's always changing, and you always have to learn new things, and it's always effortful.

It requires a great deal of effort. So I feel lucky to have had such an interesting career. I do like to exercise, in particular exercises, not just exercise alone, but I like exercises that engage your mind somehow with activities like sports. or dancing or something where you really have to think while you're exercising. I do meditate.

I only started meditating about seven or eight years ago. You know, I don't know if I could say I like it. I know it's useful and I find it interesting, but it's also difficult. I mention if you're doing it well, it takes a lot of effort. It does. And you have to kind of make yourself, at least I find, and I think a lot of people that meditate, they have to make themselves do it. Like I have to say, okay, now I'm going to meditate.

I feel like I'm not very centered, or I feel like I'm really anxious, and you have to make yourself sit. I think the main thing that I wrestle with as an older adult, middle-aged to older adult, is finding new ways to really challenge yourself. I think as you get older, you tend to go back to doing activities that you already have done.

maybe you travel to the same places or you do the same sports or you play the same music. And I think, you know, we need as we get older and as young people too, but particularly as we get older to really try to break out of our habits and challenge our mind with new activities, even though they might be frustrating. Well, great. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Shores. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much.

To listen to more episodes, please go to our website, speaking of psychology. With the American Psychological Association, speaking of psychology, I'm Audrey Hamilton.