Cognitive function enhancement techniques -
There are many supposed nootropics, most having only small effect sizes in healthy individuals. The most common pharmacological agents in neuroenhancement include modafinil and methylphenidate Ritalin.
Stimulants in general and various dementia treatments [10] or other neurological therapies [11] may affect cognition. Enhancers are multidimensional and can be clustered into biochemical, physical, and behavioral enhancement strategies.
Approved for treating narcolepsy , obstructive sleep apnea , and shift work sleep disorder , modafinil is a wakefulness-promoting drug used to decrease fatigue, increase vigilance, and reduce daytime sleepiness. In sustained sleep deprivation , repeated use of modafinil helped individuals maintain higher levels of wakefulness than a placebo , but did not help attention and executive function.
Methylphenidate MPH , also known as Ritalin, is a stimulant that is used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD. MPH is abused by a segment of the general population, especially college students. A comparison between the sales of MPH to the number of people for whom it was prescribed revealed a disproportionate ratio, indicating high abuse.
Studies are too preliminary to determine whether there are any cognitive-enhancing effects of agents such as memantine or acetylcholinesterase inhibitors examples: donepezil , galantamine. Common drugs intended for neuroehancement are typically well-tolerated by healthy people. Assessment to determine potential adverse effects are drop-out rates and subjective rating.
Neurostimulation methods are being researched and developed. Applications of augmented reality technologies see below are investigated for general memory enhancement, extending perception and learning-assistance. The Internet may be considered as a " powerful cognitive enhancement technology " [24] or as enabling "Internet-extended cognition" or "Web-extended minds" or "human-extended machine cognition".
Substantial neuroenhancement potential therefore may lie in measures such as individual empowerment possibly via existing education systems , software development and better collaborative systems for sorting and categorizing information.
Quality standards, validation and authentication , sampling and lab testing are commonly substandard or absent for products thought to be cognitive enhancers, including dietary supplements. Neuroenhancement products are mentioned in entertainment productions, such as Limitless , which may to some degree probe and explore opportunities and threats of using such products.
In general, the younger population under the age of 25 feel that neuroenhancements are acceptable or that the decision lies in the hand of that individual.
Healthcare officials and parents feel concerned due to safety factors, lack of complete information on these drugs, and possible irreversible adverse effects. Such concerns have been shown to reduce the willingness to take such drugs.
A German study among 6. A large-scale survey using a random sample of more than 5. It has been shown that consumers of neuroenhancement drugs are much more willing to also use them in the future, e.
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Cognitive Herbal weight loss solution trchniques many and diverse forms. Various methods of cognitive Eating for weight loss have implications gunction the near future. At the same enhancemrnt, these technologies raise a range of ethical issues. For example, they interact with notions of authenticity, the good life, and the role of medicine in our lives. Present and anticipated methods for cognitive enhancement also create challenges for public policy and regulation. This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access. Rent this article via DeepDyve.Cognitive function enhancement techniques -
For example, a verbal memory task for an older person with encroaching memory problems might be modified to include a 6-item list of words to recall, instead of a item list.
Prompts and cues can spur memory and provide the individual with an experience of success. If it is too hard, you risk overwhelming the person. Finding the right cognitive challenge for such individuals allows them to exercise their faculties and experience some success, rather than becoming overwhelmed and frustrated.
Neuropsychological testing is one way to assess cognitive health. However, this option can be costly and labor intensive. There are a number of excellent tools available to practitioners for basic screening and tracking of cognitive health.
Many of these tools are designed for use with older people, but some are meant for use with younger people as well. This assessment uses patient history, observations by clinicians, and concerns raised by the patient, family, or caregivers.
These measures include the General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition, Memory Impairment Screen, and the Mini-Cog brief psychometric test. These supplements include B-complex and E vitamins, minerals such as zinc, herbs such as ginkgo biloba, and other botanicals. The Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory study followed 3, older adult participants over the course of six years, randomly assigned to ginkgo biloba or placebo groups DeKosky et al.
The study found no evidence that the supplement slowed cognitive decline or prevented dementia. B-complex vitamins such as B6, B9, and B12 have not been shown to prevent or slow cognitive decline in older adults McMahon et al.
Studies have shown that certain supplements such as zinc can have positive effects on frontal or executive function in children and adults Warthon-Medina et al. Recently, a large prospective cohort study followed 5, participants for 9. As always, it is best to consult your physician before taking either approved medications or medical supplements.
We have a number of resources that specifically apply to strength assessments and a healthy mind. For some practical resources to get you started, check out some of the following. This handout is a valuable resource you can use to educate children about the benefits of exercise for mental wellness.
In particular, it lists several of the emotional and neurochemical benefits of exercise and recommends several forms of exercise children might enjoy. Use it to facilitate discussion about the link between mind and body when talking about the brain and cognitive health. This exercise invites clients to illustrate the gap between the extent to which they are currently using their strengths and the extent to which they could.
This exercise effectively gives clients immediate visual feedback on their strength use and can facilitate discussion around plans to increase or optimize strengths use. This measure was created with the help of the Activity Builder at Quenza. Quenza is a platform created by the same team who established PositivePsychology.
The Cognitive Fitness Survey can be used for self-reflection. It is designed to assess and track physical and emotional factors that contribute to cognitive health. It also assesses and tracks specific cognitive health dimensions, including attention; short-term, remote, and prospective memory; and organizational capacity.
Use them to help others flourish and thrive. For much of their history, clinical psychology and related helping professions focused on assessing and treating emotional, social, and cognitive deficits. With the positive psychology movement in the late s came a different emphasis: finding and building upon strengths.
Aspects of health and wellbeing began to be studied more assiduously and became the focus of interventions. Initially, cognitive health was one aspect of overall health and wellbeing that was overlooked by many researchers and practitioners. Fortunately, more recently, cognitive health has begun to receive the attention it deserves, as both a research topic and focus of intervention Aidman, As with other components of health and wellness, cognitive health, including attentional capacity, memory abilities, and organizational and problem-solving skills, can be enhanced with the right support and exercises.
Staying physically healthy pays large dividends toward such cognitive fitness. Physical health includes maintaining a heart-healthy diet, sleeping well, and exercising regularly.
In addition, basic, cost-effective mental activities and exercises can further boost cognitive fitness. Many of these are enjoyable in their own right and can boost cognitive skills. To be most effective, cognitive activities and exercises should involve as much novelty as possible.
To find the right activities, a positive psychology, strengths-based approach might be useful. We hope you enjoyed reading this article. About the author Dr. Jeffrey Gaines earned a Ph.
in clinical psychology from Pennsylvania State University in He sees clinical psychology as a practical extension of philosophy and specializes in neuropsychology — having been board-certified in Jeffrey is currently Clinical Director at Metrowest Neuropsychology in Westborough, MA.
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References Aidman, E. Cognitive fitness framework: Towards assessing, training and augmenting individual-difference factors underpinning high-performance cognition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , Cognitive assessment. Clinic-friendly screening for cognitive and mental health problems in school-aged youth with epilepsy.
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Positive psychology: Past, present, and future. In , researchers at Dana-Farber and Harvard Medical School released a study showing a specific molecule released during endurance exercise that improves cognition and protects the brain against degeneration.
See " Scientists Discover Why Exercise Makes You Smarter. In their breakthrough discovery, scientists honed in on a specific molecule called irisin that is produced in the brain during endurance exercise through a chain reaction.
Irisin is believed to have neuroprotective effects. Researchers were also able to artificially increase the levels of irisin in the blood which activated genes involved in learning and memory. A study of children in Finland investigated the link between cardiovascular fitness, motor skills, and academic test scores.
The researchers found that first-graders with poor motor skills also had poorer reading and arithmetic test scores. Across the board, children with better performance in fitness and motor skills had higher cognitive function and scored better on reading and arithmetic tests.
A study , "The Impact of Sustained Engagement on Cognitive Function in Older Adults: The Synapse Project," found that learning new and demanding skills while maintaining an engaged social network is key to staying sharp as we age.
The findings reveal that less-demanding activities, such as listening to classical music or simply completing word puzzles, probably don't provide noticeable benefits to an aging mind and brain. Older adults have long been encouraged to stay active and to flex their memory and learning like any muscle that you have to "use or lose.
When you are inside your comfort zone you may be outside of the enhancement zone. Another study, from , found that a training program designed to boost cognition in older adults also increased their openness to new experiences, demonstrating for the first time that a non-drug intervention in older adults can change a personality trait once thought to be fixed throughout a person's lifespan.
A study from Michigan State found that childhood participation in arts and crafts leads to innovation , patents, and increases the odds of starting a business as an adult. The researchers found that people who own businesses or patents received up to eight times more exposure to the arts as children than the general public.
And that was something we were surprised to discover. Last year, neuroscientists discovered multiple ways that musical training improves the function and connectivity of different brain regions and improves cognitive function.
Practicing a musical instrument increases brain volume and strengthens communication between brain areas. Playing an instrument changes how the brain interprets and integrates a wide range of sensory information, especially for those who start before age seven. The findings were presented at the Neuroscience conference in San Diego.
In a press briefing, Gottfried Schlaug of Harvard Medical School summarized the new research from three different presentations at the conference. He said, "These insights suggest potential new roles for musical training including fostering plasticity in the brain; have strong implications for using musical training as a tool in education ; and for treating a range of learning disabilities.
Another study found that reading books, writing, and participating in brain-stimulating activities at any age may preserve memory. Neuroscientists discovered that reading a novel can improve brain function on a variety of levels.
This study of the brain benefits of reading fiction was conducted at Emory University and published in the journal Brain Connectivity. The researchers found that becoming engrossed in a novel enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function.
In , John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago presented findings that identified that the health consequences of feeling lonely can trigger psychological and cognitive decline. Cacioppo's research found that feeling isolated from others can disrupt sleep, elevate blood pressure, increase morning rises in the stress hormone cortisol, alter gene expression in immune cells, increase depression , and lower overall subjective well-being.
All of these factors conspire to disrupt optimal brain function and connectivity, and reduce cognitive function. A pilot study by researchers at Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center identifed that the brain changes associated with meditation and subsequent stress reduction may play an important role in slowing the progression of age-related cognitive disorders like Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
First author Rebecca Erwin Wells explained, "We were particularly interested in looking at the default mode network DMN —the brain system that is engaged when people remember past events or envision the future, for example—and the hippocampus—the part of the brain responsible for emotions, learning and memory—because the hippocampus is known to atrophy as people progress toward mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.
We also know that as people age, there's a high correlation between perceived stress and Alzheimer's disease, so we wanted to know if stress reduction through meditation might improve cognitive reserve. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco UCSF have created a specialized video game that may help older people boost mental skills like handling multiple tasks at once.
Adam Gazzaley of UCSF and colleagues published their findings in Nature in If someone received additional "booster" sessions over the next three years, the improvements were even more dramatic. Scientists have known for decades that the brain requires sleep to consolidate learning and memory.
At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego in , sleep researchers from Brown University presented groundbreaking new research that helps explain the specifics of how the sleeping brain masters a new task.
The extent of reorganization that the brain accomplishes during sleep is suggested by the distinct roles the two brainwave oscillations appear to play. A study from University of California, San Francisco UCSF found an association between poor sleep quality and reduced gray matter volume in the brain's frontal lobe, which helps control important processes such as working memory and executive function.
Neuroscientists have discovered that chronic stress and high levels of cortisol can damage the brain. A wide range of recent studies has affirmed the importance of maintaining healthy brain structure and connectivity by reducing chronic stress, which lowers cortisol. Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, found that chronic stress triggers long-term changes in brain structure and function which can lead to cognitive decline.
Their findings might explain why young people exposed to chronic stress early in life are prone to mental problems such as anxiety and mood disorders later in life, as well as learning difficulties.
The "stress hormone" cortisol is believed to create a domino effect that hardwires pathways between the hippocampus and amygdala in a way that might create a vicious cycle by creating a brain that becomes predisposed to be in a constant state of fight-or-flight.
The researchers found that hardening wires may be at the heart of the hyper-connected circuits associated with prolonged stress. This results in an excess of myelin—and too much white matter—in some areas of the brain. Ideally, the brain likes to trim the fat of excess wiring through neural pruning in order to maintain efficiency and streamlined communication within the brain.
Chronic stress has the ability to flip a switch in stem cells that turns them into a type of cell that inhibits connections to the prefrontal cortex, which would improve learning and memory, but lays down durable scaffolding linked to anxiety, depression, and post- traumatic stress disorder.
Yoga has been proven to lower cortisol levels and reduce chronic stress. See " Yoga Has Potent Health Benefits.
Posted March 12, Reviewed by Enhancekent Drevitch. The New York Times recently Cognituve an functlon about the "brain fitness" Sports nutrition science, "Do Brain Workouts Work? Without a variety of other daily habits, these "brain-training" Hypertension and salt intake cannot stave off mental decline or dramatically improve cognitive function. Most of these brain-training games will have some benefits, but it's impossible to optimize brain connectivity and maximize neurogenesis growth of new neurons sitting in a chair while playing a video game on a two-dimensional screen. In order to give your brain a full workout, you need to engage both hemispheres of the cerebrum, and of the cerebellum.
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