85 billion neurons—as many brain cells as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
“You know the least but get the most done.”
Each chapter includes one or more of these special sections:
NEURO BUSTED: popular myths and misunderstandings;
NEURO GEEK: cool (if wonky) scientific theories, discoveries, and history; and
NEURO GYM: actions you can apply.
Think of Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel of God and Adam’s fingers reaching toward each other. The space between, called a synapse, is where a variety of chemical messages swirl. Those chemical embers, called neurotransmitters, float across the synaptic cleft. There are dozens of these neurotransmitters—some that you might have heard of include dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, and histamine—and they all have different effects on neuronal communication and function.
The surface of the brain doesn’t feel, it relies on the nerves it sends out into the face and the body via the spinal cord.
The brain’s reach into your body is not only mediated by nerves. The deeper structures in the brain, like the hypothalamus, make master hormone regulators that trigger the pituitary gland to drip hormones into your blood. As these hormones descend from the blood in your brain to your body, they tell the thyroid, adrenals, testicles, and ovaries what to do.
2. BEYOND MEMORY AND IQ
Трудолюбие и настойчивать важнее, чем любые другие качества.
Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey - дело не только в IQ alone. They needed good judgment, determination to succeed, and the ability to manage, delegate, and inspire those around them.
NEURO GEEK: THE FLYNN EFFECT
(Average IQ became higher) As our world has become ever more cognitively challenging, human beings became capable of getting smarter - intelligence is not determined simply by DNA.
Мозг легче обрабатывает информацию, сгруппированную по категориям (area-restricted search у голубей)
BrainHQ App - one of the best-researched programs for brain training.
NEURO GYM: THE POWER OF SELF-TESTING
3. THE SEAT OF LANGUAGE
NEURO GYM: HARNESS THE POWER OF A SECOND LANGAUGE
People who learn a second language gain significant benefits in cognitive health that last a lifetime.
Busy neurons are thriving neurons; those without any assigned tasks tend to wither.
The better a person speaks a second language and the earlier it is acquired, the more gray matter has been seen in the left parietal lobe cortex. More white matter has likewise been seen in both children and adults who speak two languages.
“Lifelong bilingualism represents a powerful cognitive reserve delaying the onset of dementia.”
живое общение несравнимо лучше!
4 UNLEASH CREATIVITY
NEURO BUSTED: THE LEFT BRAIN/RIGHT BRAIN MYTH
Нет такого разделения людей по левому/правому полушарию. Хотя области левого полушария вовлечены в разговорную речь и математические задачи, математики и программисты, как и художники с поэтами, активно используют оба полушария.
...brain cells use more blood when they’re hard at work, just like your muscle cells do when you’re running.
Surprisingly, along with the well-known deterioration of memory and disruption of mood that come with dementia, some people with Alzheimer’s disease develop newly discovered artistic abilities (most often the ability to draw or paint). This is the subject of a documentary, “I Remember Better When I Paint”.
MY METHOD FOR CREATIVITY
The night before particularly challenging operations, I always carefully review the images of the patient’s brain and brain tumor just before going to bed.
Then, while falling asleep, I imagine rotating the tumor, seeing the surrounding, dangerous terrain that I must avoid or traverse.
Upon waking the next morning, I again take a few minutes to revisit the shapes and contours.
-- This simple practice, I have found, helps to deeply imprint on my mind a spatial awareness of the anatomy that I need to dissect through and around.
As an extension of that approach, two nights of every week, just before going to sleep, I read articles that are directly or tangentially related to any experiment I’m struggling with.
NEURO GYM #1-2-3
Break the routine, spend more time goofing around. Sleep, dream, play, take a walk: do anything but work.
NEURO GEEK: MICRODOSING FOR CREATIVITY
... What psychedelics are thought to do is to disassemble the freeways temporarily, leaving only a dense and evenly distributed network of roads. This dissolution greatly expands the diversity of connections and, as a result, allows unexpected and original thoughts. . . Tiny amounts given in a controlled setting—not enough to cause hallucinations but the equivalent of a single sip of wine—might just help some of us become a little, um, broader in our creative abilities.
5 SMART DRUGS, STUPID DRUGS
I have found that I write best for only 90 minutes at a sitting,
“smart” drugs to enhance memory and concentration, typically involving the use of prescription pharmaceuticals that were originally designed to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or sleep disorders.
ALCOHOL
... in moderation—no more than two drinks per day for men or one per day for women—it appears to modestly reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and death according to the Harvard School of Public Health.
CAFFEINE
Разгоняет усталость и сонливость, улучшает реакцию, настроение, концентрацию и координацию. Но!... нет доказательств того, что он улучшает когнитивные функции или память - 90% участников эксперимента думали, что им помог кафеин, но их результаты были такими же, как у всех!
NEURO GYM: A SMARTER WAY TO CAFFEINATE
The optimal dosing of caffeine would confer the benefits of alertness and focus but with the fewest side effects ( jitteriness and sleeplessness) possible.
крепче - не значит лучше! one could achieve the same alertness as customarily enjoyed with 65% less intake of caffeine. To try it out, enter your sleep schedule and how much caffeine you drink and when at the website he created, https://2b-alert-web.bhsai.org/2b-alert-web/login.xhtml, or try a smartphone app such as Caffeine Tracker.
COCAINE
КОКАИН coke is a nightmare, even if some continue to flirt with it for a momentary kick. It can damage blood vessels and raise blood pressure, potentially causing headaches, convulsions, heart attacks, and stroke.
MARIJUANA
Marijuana might make you feel more relaxed, make you laugh, enjoy food and music more, and it certainly has some proven medical benefits. Whether it makes you creatively insightful is hard to pin down (especially the morning after). But calling it a smart drug is a bit of a stretch.
NICOTINE
Курение - причина 20% смертей!
Но никотин без табака дает интересные эффекты.
Nicotine patch... It kicked in like a cup of coffee: The cobwebs went away, and the writing came more easily. But it didn’t fade like coffee after a couple of hours, and I never felt jittery. The patches are meant to last for twenty-four hours, and certainly they gave me four hours of writing that felt effortless.
6 SLEEP ON IT
Sleep is a firestorm of brain activity. Instead of taking in new information, our brain’s subconscious is occupied defragging, deleting, and storing the prior day’s doings for long-term retrieval; cleaning out bits and pieces of discarded brain schmutz; and presenting us with immersive 3-D virtual stories in which we are the star.
Sleep calls on deep powers of the brain never used during wakefulness.
WHY WE SLEEP
we know that humans and other mammals do during sleep is to transform short-term memories stacked up during the day into memories that can last a lifetime.
After studying for a test, students will actually remember more after a nap or a night’s sleep than if they had stayed awake and kept studying for an extra few hours.
Likewise, people who try learning a dance move or any other physical skill perform better the next morning than they did immediately following the training.
Of course, not all short-term memories and insights go into long-term storage. Quite the opposite. Most of what happened yesterday, let alone last week or last year, is literally deleted from your brain at night.
RAPID EYE MOVEMENT
In fact, dreams occur through much of the night even without REM.
SLEEP DURATION RECOMMENDATIONS
ADULTS (26–64 YEARS)
RECOMMENDED: 7–9 hours
MAY BE APPROPRIATE (LOW): 6 hours
MAY BE APPROPRIATE (HIGH): 10 hours
NOT RECOMMENDED: Less than 6 hours or more than 10 hours
OLDER ADULTS (≥ 65 YEARS)
RECOMMENDED: 7–8 hours
MAY BE APPROPRIATE (LOW): 5–6 hours
MAY BE APPROPRIATE (HIGH): 9 hours
NOT RECOMMENDED: Less than 5 hours or more than 9 hours
DARK AT NIGHT, LIGHT BY DAY
to get a better night’s sleep and improve your health overall, avoid bright light at night to the degree possible and get outside for at least 20 minutes per day to enjoy the sunshine.
get yourself some bright, white, full-spectrum lightbulbs.
LUCID DREAMING
I learned about lucid dreaming from an outstanding book first published in 1975: Creative Dreaming by Patricia Garfield, PhD. Its instructions for inducing lucid dreams work as well today as they did then.
Here’s a two-week plan for lucid dreaming. It’s best done during a vacation because sleeping in late is an important component:
Every day and night, tell yourself repeatedly that you will have a dream in which you fly like a bird. Because it’s so obviously impossible, flying is one of the most common reasons that people realize they are dreaming. By repeating in your mind “Tonight I will fly” as often as possible, you increase the chance that you will have a flying dream.
Allow yourself to sleep as late as possible each morning. The longer you sleep, the more vivid dreams tend to become, and the better the chances that you will remember them.
When you awaken, do not roll over or get up. Keeping your head still, lie quietly and try to remember your dreams. The longer you try, the more you will remember. Spend at least 10 minutes on this every morning.
Keep a dream log. Once you have remembered as many of your dreams as possible, write them down in a journal. If you don’t end up having a few lucid dreams, at least you will enjoy some good, long nights of sleep and the entertainment of your brain’s awe-inspiring capacity for interactive virtual reality.
NEURO GYM: HOW TO GET MORE ZZZZZ’S
Drinking yourself to sleep causes more problems than it solves.
A detailed list of do’s and don’ts is found on the American Academy of Sleep Medicine website, https://aasm.org >> http://sleepeducation.org
Keep a consistent sleep schedule, even on weekends or during vacations.
Set a bedtime that is early enough for you to get at least 7 hours of sleep.
Don’t go to bed unless you are sleepy.
If you don’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed.
Establish a relaxing bedtime routine.
Use your bed only for sleep and sex.
Make your bedroom quiet and relaxing. Keep the room at a comfortable, cool temperature.
Limit exposure to bright light in the evenings.
Turn off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
Don’t eat a large meal before bedtime. If you are hungry at night, eat a light, healthy snack.
Exercise regularly and maintain a healthy diet.
Avoid consuming caffeine in the late afternoon or evening.
Avoid consuming alcohol before bedtime.
Reduce your fluid intake before bedtime.
7 JUST BREATHE
NEURO GEEK: MINDFUL BREATHING
Mindful breathing can benefit anyone and everyone, it’s a fundamental part of mindfulness meditation, focusing the mind on the here and now. Its benefits, however, are not just spiritual or psychological. Mindful breathing (or paced volitional breathing, as it’s referred to in neuroscience) improves the very structure, physiology, and function of your brain
From various experiments: mindful breathing helps the frontal lobe stifle negative emotions ... 11 days of training increased participants’ white matter connections ... not only helps to regulate blood pressure and heart rate, but is also closely involved in decision-making, impulse control, and even ethics ... just 5 hours of training over the course of 2 weeks increased neuronal branching ... An additional 6 hours of training resulted in those neurons getting insulated by myelin sheaths...
NEURO GYM: HOW TO BREATHE MINDFULLY
Sit down somewhere quiet, and pay attention to your breathing, putting other things out of your mind as best you can for10-15 minutes. 4:4:4:4... - Breathe in slowly, through your nose, for a count of 4. Hold your breath with lungs filled for a count of 4. Exhale slowly, through your mouth, for a count of 4. Wait to inhale for a count of 4.
However it’s highly recommended to attend a mindful meditation class or seek out a coach.
8 HOW TO HANDLE HEAD INJURIES
The one and only factor in diagnosing a concussion is simple:
It must include a change in mental functioning either immediately or in the hours after a blow.
The person might feel dizzy, confused, or nauseated; he might develop a headache.
They might have temporary trouble talking, walking, remembering, thinking straight, making decisions, or doing anything that requires muscle coordination.
Their eyes might suddenly be sensitive to light.
They might vomit, hear a ringing in their ears, or have visual disturbances.
The vast majority of concussions leave no lasting effect on a person’s mental functioning. In a matter of days or weeks, the person feels fine and shows no mental or emotional deficits.
That second concussion (повторно, когда еще не отошел от первого) is the one to worry about. Whereas the vast majority of people recover from a single concussion with no long-term damage, those who experience a second concussion before recovering from the first are at increased risk of developing Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
NEURO GYM: HOW BEST TO RECOVER FROM A CONCUSSION
The first rule of recovery from a concussion should be obvious by now: Don’t run out and get a second concussion. Especially until after all symptoms of an initial concussion have cleared up, it is absolutely essential that a person avoid activities that could result in a second one.
So if you or a loved one has had a concussion: See a doctor. Take it easy for at least a few days.
9 FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Let’s dive into what you should eat if peak brain performance and healthy aging is what you seek.
THE MIND DIET
The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay diet—or MIND diet, for short—was specially designed to improve brain health - it helps to avoid mental decline and remain cognitively healthy... reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by 50%.
It’s big on fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish, and chicken,
and down on red meat, saturated fats, and sweets.
More information ahttps://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/features/mind-diet-alzheimers-disease
INTERMITTENT FASTING
Going without food for even a day increases your brain’s natural growth factors, which support the survival and growth of neurons.
People who follow a serious caloric restriction, eating as little as a thousand calories per day, are always hungry. I’m talking about being intermittently hungry by forcing your body to burn its fat reserves once or twice a week.
I follow (or at least try to) an intermittent fasting diet, my plan:
FAST TWICE A WEEK. The goal is to hit 2 stretches of 16-hour periods without food. So choose 2 days, not back to back, and skip breakfast and lunch or skip lunch and dinner. When you add in the hours you sleep, it’s relatively easy to get to 16 hours. Every Monday and Thursday, I skip breakfast and lunch and eat only dinner.
NO BREAKFAST. I’m talking about avoiding breakfast almost every day! Some people insist that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but there’s no good evidence for that. The only time I eat breakfast is occasionally on the weekends, with my boys, just to hang out and be in the moment with them.
SALAD FOR LUNCH. I rarely eat a sandwich or burger or anything with carbs. My routine is to have a salad for lunch.
NO LATE-NIGHT SNACKS. This one is hard for me, especially after a long day or when I have fasted. But I try. Please keep in mind, I’m no extremist. I do go out to eat with family and friends, often. Sometimes I’m invited to a breakfast meeting and go with the flow. But I have made intermittent fasting part of my routine
Dr. Michael Greger: вообще-то одни и те же калории утром “легче” (т.е. усваиваются лучше), чем вечером! -- Exactly When Should We Eat?
This episode features audio from Time-Restricted Eating Put to the Test and The Benefits of Early Time-Restricted Eating. Visit the video pages for all sources and doctor’s notes related to this podcast.
NEURO GYM: LET YOUR HABITS HELP YOU
The real key to improving your brain health is establishing basic, sensible habits that will get you through most days. Habits are powerful.
First, be specific and positive: make it measurable as something you will do not just something you won’t. Second, tell other people what you’re going to do and ask for their support. Third, pick only one habit that you’re going to change. Once your habit is established, it becomes much easier.
I love the simple recommendation from Michael Pollan: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”
Burgers: once in a while, not daily.
Cheesecake: once in a while, not every day.
Enjoying a meal and conversation, daily.
10 HOW THE BRAIN HEALS ITSELF
Neurons are multidimensional in the roles they can play to serve the brain’s evolving needs. In neuroscience, we describe the brain in terms of “neuronal ensembles” that coordinate at a functional level ... this capacity of the brain to reassign and reinvent is called “plasticity.”
NEURO GYM: BUILD YOUR NEUROPLASTICITY
Become ambidextrous - This will force the movement areas of your cerebral cortex to recruit idle neurons to the task.
Learning to play a musical instrument engages both hands individually and in concert.
Learning a new language, even if you don’t end up mastering it, is an excellent way to exercise the neuroplasticity of your left temporal lobe.
(our ability to communicate arises from the function of a vaguely delineated region; and the more square footage you acquire for it, the more cognitive reserve you’ll have to access as you age)
Navigate with your brain, not with your phone GPS
(the main area for memory in the brain, the hippocampus, is also your brain’s GPS. In fact, there are unique neurons called grid cells for navigating your way through a city or a subway. Tellingly, grid cells are part of the neuronal tissue that is lost in Alzheimer’s, leading to disorientation in severe cases. So, using your internal compass rather than immediately pressing “route” on Google Maps is a great way to develop valuable spatial orientation skills)
13 STEM CELLS AND BEYOND
Вокруг стволовых клеток слишком много аферистов!
Do not be manipulated by these standalone clinics that seek to profit off people’s desperation. The difference between them and legitimate university-based medical institutions that actually know what they’re doing is big enough to drive a hearse through.
NEURO GYM: HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLINICAL TRIAL
My opinion: I am here to serve the patient as best as I can, and that means sometimes referring them to a different specialist or academic center. No doctor should ever take offense that you are going elsewhere for treatment. Another reason people don’t seek out a clinical trial is because they think they have to be extremely sick, looking for a last-ditch treatment, in order to enroll. That’s a myth. Even if you have only just been diagnosed with a neurological disorder and have yet to receive any treatment whatsoever, I encourage you to look into participating in a clinical trial and at a minimum learning what is out there. What’s in it for you?
First, you will receive state-of-the-art treatment from specialists.
Second, even if the stem cells, drugs, or new surgical approaches do not cure you, you get to help in the search for treatments that do work.
And third, the treatment will be entirely free.
14 THE YOUNGER BRAIN
Young adults look fully grown, and their intellectual powers—their capacity for making rapid calculations and forming long-term memories—will never get better. But most young people reach their college years with plenty of growing still to do. Their decision-making and judgment lag behind. And that’s not just because of a lack of experience. As neuroscientists have discovered, the brain—and in particular the prefrontal cortex—does not fully mature until our late twenties.
NEURO GEEK: WHEN IS THE BRAIN FULLY GROWN?
The researchers looked at myelination in 1,500 brains and showed that it occurred steadily into the twenties. And for some outliers even into their early thirties!
NEURO BUSTED: THE EVIL OF PHONES AND VIDEO GAMES
All I’m saying is that, in moderation, a cell phone is just another tool. With our kids we block porn. Other than that, we try to suggest a healthier digital diet. It’s not just how much time they are on the phone, but what they are doing on it. No phones at dinner is a clear choice, and at meals we all put our phones down in a separate room, as studies show that having phones even nearby and face down on silent mode is still distracting.
“The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity.” Their study of nearly 800 smartphone users found that those who were told to place their phones in another room performed better on a test of attention than did those allowed to keep the phones by their side.
My approach has been to set a few windows during the day when the phones are left behind in a different room.
“Use it or lose it”? When it comes to synapses, that’s how their fate is determined. Those assigned to discern visual input, store a memory, learn a skill, or control breathing get stronger; those without a job are left to wither.
15 THE OLDER BRAIN
... a baby aspirin per day significantly lowers the risk of heart attacks and strokes due to blood clots. But that same clot-busting ability also increases the risk of bleeding in the stomach and in the brain. Overall, far more lives are saved by taking the baby aspirin, because the risk from a heart attack or stroke due to a clot is so much higher than the risk of bleeding.
On average, a person’s brain volume shrinks by about 5% per decade after the age of 40, even though the size of the dura surrounding it (and, of course, the skull) remain the same.
NEURO GEEK: SPIKE THE NOURISHING LIQUOR IN YOUR BRAIN
There is a way to stave off this loss of nutrients in your CSF and even replenish them to youthful levels: exercise. Specifically, an exercise regimen with both aerobic exercise and resistance training has been shown to be the best way to keep your brain’s nourishing liquor at full strength.
TYPICAL BRAIN AGING
There are actually four kinds of memory:
SEMANTIC MEMORY is general knowledge about the world, everything from who Isaac Newton was, to what a bagel tastes like, and where your office is—all the kinds of basic facts and meanings that computers and robots don’t understand. Thankfully, in normal brain aging, this huge knowledge base not only remains generally stable in an older adult but can continue to grow as a person learns more.
PROCEDURAL MEMORY is knowledge of how to do things. How do you get dressed in the morning? How do you ride a bike? Once learned, procedural memories tend to remain solid as a rock. Performance does tend to fall off with age due to the natural slowing of reflexes.
EPISODIC MEMORY is your recollection of events. Where did you go to kindergarten? When did you first meet your spouse? What did you eat for breakfast yesterday? And where did you leave the keys? This is the one that tends to naturally weaken with age. In fact, episodic memory peaks in your midtwenties and then slowly declines throughout life. That’s why you still remember the words to songs from when you were a teenager but barely remember the plot of a movie you saw last year. Fortunately, our phones can help catalog and retrieve much of this type of memory.
WORKING MEMORY is the brain’s workspace, where you can hold and manipulate a handful of facts and figures in your head... the older you get, the tighter your limits. That’s why mathematicians, musicians, and physicists tend to do their most important work when they’re young . . . and why once-simple tasks get progressively more difficult with age. This the type of memory, which facilitates multitasking and juggling life’s responsibilities, is the type of memory most healthy people want to optimize.
AGING: What are the physical changes underlying these changes in memory and other brain functions? There are at least four of them:
LOSS OF SENSORY FUNCTIONS, in particular due to difficulties seeing and hearing. Studies have shown that age-related hearing loss is directly associated with cognitive decline, in part because the area of the brain that is supposed to be dedicated to higher-level cognition is instead forced to struggle to interpret diminished sounds.
HEMISPHERIC ASYMMETRY REDUCTION in older adults. Rather than showing the normal variation in electrical activity between the left and right prefrontal cortex as seen in younger people, the two sides of the brain tend to show increasingly similar activation when faced with tasks involving memory or visual perception. It seems to be a case of “all hands on deck,” because tasks that previously could be handled easily by one side of the brain now need help from the other.
REDUCTION IN NEUROTRANSMITTERS. Beginning in early adulthood, dopamine levels, which affect both physical movement and reward-motivated behavior, decline by about 10% every decade. The result for some people who had naturally low levels of dopamine to begin with is that they develop Parkinson’s disease, in which the muscles become increasingly stiff, slow, and shaky. For others, it’s the fever of youthful ambition that slowly fades. Levels of serotonin and other neurotransmitters drop with aging.
HORMONE LEVELS also drop with age. Early in life, growth hormone, estrogen, and male steroids all play essential roles in brain structure and function, and their gradual decrease over the lifespan may be associated with changes. But not all the brain changes in older people are bad. Research has found that older adults have a greater sense of well-being and greater emotional stability.
NEURO BUSTED: SOCIAL MEDIA DOESN’T COUNT AS SOCIALIZING
One recent study showed that older people who have come on board with social media and technology have fewer chronic illnesses and depressive symptoms. Another study from the Proceedings from the Royal Society even showed that the density of neurons in the temporal lobes, which serve language and memory, is greater in those with online social networks.
HEART AND MIND
What’s good for the heart is actually very good for the brain. The steps you take to keep your heart arteries unclogged also keep brain arteries open.
(Avoiding blood clots by taking a blood thinner can also benefit the brain, but the drugs also carry some risks. However, only people diagnosed with heart disease are generally recommended to take a baby aspirin.)
NEURO GYM: SECRETS OF HEALTHY BRAIN AGING
How can you be a super-ager? There are three ways to increase your odds:
EDUCATION.
The reason why education pays off is because of something called cognitive reserve: people with extra brain power (thanks in part to extra education) can afford to lose more before showing obvious signs of decline.
SOCIAL NETWORKS.
The greater your degree of social connections, whether with friends or family, the lower your risk of developing dementia. Compared with those who remain in touch with few friends or family, studies have found, those with many relationships have a risk of dementia that is between 25% and 50% lower.
Then again, social isolation is not the same as loneliness. Some studies have found that it’s loneliness—the feeling of being isolated—that puts people at higher risk of cognitive loss. For those who feel perfectly happy with a book and a cup of tea, more power to them.
PHYSCIAL ACTIVITY.
Physical activity turns out to be one of the absolute best ways to maintain and even improve cognitive health.
Surprisingly, though, cardiovascular exercise has demonstrated the least benefit in older adults. By contrast, Teresa Liu-Ambrose, PhD, of the University of British Columbia, has found that resistance training with weights improves cognition.
Even more surprisingly, at least to me, is that similar benefits on cognition were seen in two clinical trials — among older adults randomized to participate in the traditional Chinese practice of tai chi.
EPILOGUE
I hope I have debunked some of the pop neuroscience myths with the Neuro Busted sections of this book, that you have learned some of the colorful aspects of neuroscience in the Neuro Geek sections, and that you will take advantage of the practical tips I have presented in the Neuro Gym sections.
