Back to School for All of Us

It’s that time of year when kids go back to school, summer vacations end and projects at work begin with renewed vigor.  And, it’s a great time to talk about learning, education and the brain!

 

Maybe you have heard of the term “cognitive reserve”.  This refers to the brain’s capacity to out-pace Alzheimer’s-related pathology for an extended period of time, thus maintaining cognitive function despite the presence of disease.  Building a cognitive reserve is a strategy at our disposal for delaying the onset of dementia, and so learning should be a life-long endeavor.

 

 

In 2014 a paper was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that named lack of education as having the highest “population attributable risk” for world-wide cases of Alzheimer’s disease.  That means that among modifiable risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s a poor education is most to blame.  (In the United States, a lack of exercise is most to blame.)  While our school days are behind us, we can strive to support the youngsters in our lives while they pursue their education, and as adults we can continue to build our brains through challenging and purposeful learning.

 

One way to build a cognitive reserve is through language learning; in fact, those among us who speak two languages have bigger brains, and learning a new language may build the brain more than other types of learning.  Take this example from Sweden: The Swedish Armed Forces trains new recruits to serve as interpreters.  These recruits learn a novel language incredibly quickly through intensive immersive study, becoming fluent in just three months.  Researchers measured the size of their brains before and after using MRI scan and found that their brains had grown significantly in just 3 months, especially in the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain!   While we all can’t devote ourselves to fluency of a new language in 3 months, we can say that studying a new language – at any age - is a good bet for keeping our brain in shape! For more information on how to keep your brain in top condiction, visit http://www.northshore.org/brainhealth.

 

Take care,

Demetrius “Jim” Maraganore