Have you ever played your flute in the graveyard?
January 28th 2008 22:53
Signature Tune
From: Berkshire.Eagle.com we have comments about the playing of games for the development and maintenance of brain function.
Concern centers on the growing problem of Alzheimer's, as more and more people pass their 80th and 90th birthdays and begin to wear out in the memory department.
But a large chunk of the concern is directed to the other end of the population, the question being whether video games are stunting children's brains. It's one thing, obviously, to live so long that the filing cabinets in your head get rusty or even fall apart; it's quite another to reach adolescence and find that part of your gray matter is a bit mildewed before your age has broken into double digits.
Thousands — especially as the new year launches — are running on treadmills, lifting weights, doing lateral pull-downs and assuming impossible positions on enormous exercise balls to improve their physical fitness. At least some of those activities supposedly regenerate some of the neurons of the brain.
But experts say it is also crucial for humans to deal with brain fitness directly. Although certain authorities have pooh-poohed the idea, many people have taken up crossword puzzles, not so much because they love them but because they think they contribute to brain health.
Jigsaw puzzles are another plus, as well as sudoku, which probably stimulates the brain by providing an immense amount of frustration — at least at first.
As for crossword puzzles, the easiest ones give the brain a boost. But a finished New York Times Sunday crossword definitely puts the puzzler in a category comparable to the guy who is bench-pressing enormous iron discs into the air without so much as a grunt. Lots of common word puzzles, like the Jumble, are considered preschool level when it comes to true brain training. Such activities indeed improve focus and memory, but it turns out there is more to be had.
Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, a neuroscientist of some repute, thinks timed exercises with words and numbers perk up the prefrontal cortex and actually give the practitioner an improved brain.
Done on a DS — that stands for Double Screen — the Kawashima Brain Age programs include training, sudoku puzzles and a brain age test. The goal, no matter your age, is to have the brain of a 20-year-old.
On my first round, Kawashima's program said my brain was 80 years old. Pretty depressing. It was a long way to getting the gray matter reoriented into the 20s. Then I learned that 12-year-old Sam was testing as a 70-something, his Ph.D. aunt not a whole lot better.
But once we had the hang of how to take the test, we dropped quickly to more acceptable levels, although the age of the brain varied quite a few years from day to day. Because we read music, we did horribly on the piano test at first because we kept getting ahead of the pointer, which created errors. Getting in gear was like following the bouncing ball on the old Mitch Miller show.
So, although there is no question that Kawashima's tests force intense concentration, it also is true that you do better once you get in the groove. And although many of the experts still say video games are damaging, other authorities point out that passive watching of television is worse and that, indeed, "moderate" use of video games may well have a positive effect on the brain.
In any case, it's nice to know that the brain, like biceps, can recover lost strength under the right circumstances. Doing it with a video game is just plain fun for an addict like me, owner of several Game Boys, a Play Station and a very early Nintendo.
Eschewing the violent games, I would wind down from a late Saturday of editing at The Eagle with "Zelda" and was so stymied one night that I called the help line in Redmond, Wash.
"This is Captain John," said the fellow who answered the phone. I presented my question. "Play your flute in the graveyard," he counseled solemnly, and I did, and it worked, and my brain instantly had three new cells.
| 68 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by tlcorbin