Strategy. Innovation. Brand.

brain health

My Brain Is Ripening

My brain is aging like a fine wine.

My brain is aging like a fine wine.

What cognitive advantages do young people have over me? Not as many as we once thought.

We once assumed that our brains grew until, oh say, our mid-twenties and then gradually declined until death. We had what we had and would never get any more. As cells died, they weren’t replaced. After reaching its peak, the brain was essentially static – it couldn’t grow or enrich itself. It could only decay.

A new paradigm holds that the brain is plastic – it can grow and change and build new connections well into our mature years. It may even be possible to do brain exercises to improve our mental performance.

This model generally divides intelligence into two types: fluid and crystallized. Fluid intelligence is the ability to think critically and manage effectively in novel situations. People with fluid intelligence can reason their way through unfamiliar territory by recognizing patterns and relationships. They figure out stuff on the fly.

People with crystallized intelligence have valuable facts and data stored in their brains and know what to do with it. (I have some data and I know how to use it!) It’s all about what we’ve experienced, learned, and remembered over a lifetime.

Young people tend to excel at fluid intelligence. Why? They get more practice. Since they don’t have many experiences, a greater proportion of their experiences will be novel. When our 14-year-old niece spent a summer with us in Stockholm, everything was new to her. She experienced her first taxicab, her first subway, and her first molten chocolate cake. She had plenty of chances to hone her fluid intelligence.

Older people, on the other hand, tend to have more crystallized intelligence. I experienced my first subway long ago. I learned from the experience and stored what I learned somewhere in memory (where it crystallized). I can deal with subways because I know about them. I don’t need to spot new patterns; I already recognize them. As I deal with fewer novel situations, my fluid intelligence gets rusty.

Now, there’s a new, new paradigm of brain function. It’s not just fluid versus crystallized. Rather, there are multiple cognitive skills and they peak at different times in our lives.

The new view is exemplified in the work of Laura Germine and Joshua Hartshorne. Germine and Hartshorne have recruited thousands of people of all ages to play mental games at testmybrain.org and gameswithwords.org. The resulting data allow the researchers to identify different cognitive skills and relate them to different age ranges. (The original paper is here. A less technical overview is here).

Here’s a summary of what they found:

Peak mental processing speed occurs, as expected, in late teens and early 20s and declines relatively rapidly afterward. But other skills peak at different times. Working memory climbs in the late 20s to early 30s, and then declines only slowly over time. Social cognition, the ability to detect others’ emotions, peaks even later — in the 40s to age 50 — and doesn’t start to significantly decline until after 60. …. Crystalized intelligence, measured as vocabulary skills, didn’t have a peak. Instead, it continued to improve as respondents aged, until 65 to 70.

The finding that crystallized intelligence doesn’t peak until 65 to 70 seemed to contradict earlier studies. When Germine and Hartshorne analyzed earlier studies however, they found that the peak itself rose over time. Studies conducted in the seventies, for instance, suggested that crystallized intelligence peaked in the early 40s. Studies conducted in the eighties and nineties found a later peak: around 50. Studies conducted since 1998 showed an even later peak: around 65. So, perhaps, our entire society is getting smarter.

So don’t assume that my brain is declining as I age. Rather, in Germine’s phase, it’s ripening. Maybe yours is, too.

The Hedonic Treadmill and Brain Health

The treadmill? Again?

The treadmill? Again?

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article that explains why your dog is happier than you are.

The general idea is rather simple. Everything that happens in a dog’s life is new and stimulating. Each car ride brings a new adventure. For us humans, new things or new experiences soon become the new normal. Rather than being stimulating and refreshing, new things quickly become part of a new routine. We’re soon back in the same old rut. It’s known as hedonic adaptation or the hedonic treadmill.

I’ve remarked on this to many dog-owning friends and they all agree that it’s real. Their general explanation is that dogs live in the moment and we don’t.

But why would that be? Why would dogs live in the eternal present while we humans continue to flit back and forth between past, present, and future? To live in the present, we humans need special training in mindfulness and meditation. Why isn’t it just our natural state of being? It seems to work pretty well for dogs.

Then I considered what it takes to keep the human brain healthy. Most of the sources I’ve consulted suggest that seeking novelty is a key ingredient of brain health. Seeking out novel experiences, learning new skills, visiting new countries all stimulate us and contribute to brain health. Even reading a political columnist whom you disagree with can apparently contribute to a healthy brain. So can doing more things with your non-dominant hand.

Why would these activities contribute to brain health? Novelty stimulates new connections in the brain. We all have bazillions of brain cells. That’s all well and good but it’s the richness and density of the network that connects those cells that seems to influence brain health. Doing new things stimulates growth. Doing the same old things can reinforce existing connections but is less likely to create new ones.

So how do we encourage humans to seek novelty? Simple: make old things boring. Perhaps we experience the hedonic treadmill because we need novelty to promote brain health. With simpler brains, dogs don’t need a hedonic treadmill. They can live in the moment and stay perfectly healthy. We can’t.

Think about that the next time you’re lusting after a new car or a new house or a new toy. The acquisition might just bust your budget. But it might also make your brain healthier. At least for a while.

My Social Media

YouTube Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Newsletter Signup
Archives