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Your Job Can Protect You From Cognitive Decline

Your Job Can Protect You From Cognitive Decline

by | 2022 Aug 11 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

age brain performance

If you have the right job that is.

First let’s understand what the researchers were investigating. There is something strange going on with Alzheimer’s – we know that in Alzheimer’s disease there is a build-up of clumps of protein in the brain known as amyloid plaques. These were discovered many, many years ago and seemed to be obviously contributing and causing the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s.

However, over the years something strange was noticed. Namely that some people seem to have high build-up of these plaques but remain cognitive on top of it. Their memory and thinking abilities remain good into a ripe old age with none of the decline noticed in Alzheimer’s – or even through general ageing.

So, what is happening – well, it appears there is a “cognitive reserve” that some people can draw on that protects from cognitive decline – but what contributes to this?

This is precisely what these researchers around Pamela Almeida-Meza for the American Academy of Neurology wanted to find out.

For this they used data from 1’184 people born in 1946 in the UK – they had taken a cognitive test at age 8 and had repeated them at aged 69. They also had done a reading test at age 53 and other factors were measured such as profession until 53 and social activites such as membership and active participation in clubs, further learning, and organisations.

Therefore, they could measure not just absolute cognitive score at different ages but the decrease in this over a lifetime and match this to lifestyle factors. Obviously, people who scored high as children are also likely to score high as adults. This therefore aims to find the contributing factors that make a difference.

I am sure you want to know what these factors were.

So first off yes, childhood cognitive scores showed higher cognitive ratings at 69 – so cognitive ability does seem to be preserved – to a degree. They also noticed that educational achievement at 26 correlated strongly to highly preserved cognitive abilities. Occupation up to 53 was also predictive as was reading ability at 53. A more surprising correlation was that of social activities such as being in clubs or being enrolled in learning programmes – those with most activities showed the highest scores.

So, this shows that childhood cognitive ability, job, and social activities all contribute to creating a cognitive reserve and reducing cognitive decline with or without plaques. So, it is not just your job as I suggested in the headline – though other research has shown that having a cognitively demanding job helps preserve cognitive ability.

But you may say that these are all interrelated. If you have high cognitive ability as a child, you will likely get a better education, and then get a better job, and this will likely preserve cognitive ability (not to mention avoiding other stressors in life).

That is true but when the researchers created a “cognitive reserve rating” which included educational level, occupation, reading ability at 53, and social activities at 43, they saw that this reduced cognitive decline irrespective of childhood cognitive ability.

So, this suggests that these factors are important in keeping your cognitive ability. But it also means that you may be able to compensate with other factors – you may not have the most cognitively challenging job but you can certainly be socially active, in clubs and associations and this may give you the cognitive stimulation, plus social contact, that your brain needs.

So, keep learning, keep active, be socially engaged, and have a cognitively stimulating job – that will help preserve your cognitive ability irrespective of plaques. That’s good to know!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Pamela Almeida-Meza, Marcus Richards, Dorina Cadar.
Moderating Role of Cognitive Reserve Markers Between Childhood Cognition and Cognitive Ageing: Evidence From the 1946 UK Birth Cohort.
Neurology, 2022
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200928

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How Nature Is Good For Your Health

How Nature Is Good For Your Health

by | 2022 Aug 10 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

health brain exercise

I have reported multiple times how nature is good for your health.

For example, in my article on the simple benefits of walking I also show how nature helps in multiple ways such a by lowering stress hormones or increasing human natural killer cells, critical for your immune system functioning. There are multiple other factors – I also reported on how biodiversity correlates with better well-being but also how air quality can have multiple positive impacts.

So, with all of this it should be crystal clear that exposure to nature is good for us human beings. Well, it is clear, but on the other hand there are so many studies using different methods, measuring different impacts of well-being, interacting in different ways with nature, with different population groups. This can make it hard to draw definitive conclusions or to give sweeping generalisations. Enter Lam Thi Mai Huynh et al. from the University of Tokyo.

This group of researchers have conducted a systematic review of the literature and identified 301 studies for inclusion into this. From this they were then able to identify 16 different mechanisms with which people engage with nature which could for example be cognitive, developing knowledge of nature, or cohesive, developing a relationship to nature. What has also been identified are also negative aspects which have rarely been reported on this. These mostly include disturbances from sounds of animals – the mooing of the cows on the farm next door may disturb your daily zoom meeting – or fear of animals, but also through the negative impacts of the degradation of nature.

So why is this important?

It is important because this piece has identified more mechanisms than previously assumed but also creates a structure for future research. This means we will be better able to quantify the effects of nature. Moreover, they also noted that almost all research focuses on the impacts on the individual, all well and good, but that there should also be a focus on the community impacts which are also very important and tend to be very positive.

So, all in this is a very important, and probably underrated, step forward for research into nature and how this impacts us human beings – almost always positively.

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Lam Thi Mai Huynh, Alexandros Gasparatos, Jie Su, Rodolfo Dam Lam, Ezekiel I. Grant, Kensuke Fukushi. 
Linking the nonmaterial dimensions of human-nature relations and human well-being through cultural ecosystem services. 
Science Advances, 2022; 8 (31)
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn8042

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Do Your Chores, You’ll Live Longer – And Better!

Do Your Chores, You’ll Live Longer – And Better!

by | 2022 Aug 9 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

chores brain health

No, I haven’t been paid to write this by irate spouses or parents! Fact is doing the chores could be very beneficial to your wellbeing.

How so you may ask? Well, I admit I have exaggerated a little, but only a little, for the headline. But recent research has shown interesting correlations to dementia, and this matches bunches of other research into moderate and light activity being beneficial to health and therefore lifespan.

So, what does this latest research say?

This recently published study by Zhou et al. from the American Academy of Neurology analysed data from 501’376 people in the UK Biobank with an average age of 56 and tracked these over 11 years. They completed various questionnaires and various aspects of their daily life such as how much exercise they did, daily activities, social contact, etc. At the end of the study period 5’185 had developed dementia.

The researchers corrected for obvious factors such as age at the outset of the study and income groups. What they found is that those who engaged in physical activity had much-reduced chances of developing dementia (no surprise, backed up by countless other studies). They also found that those who had high social contact had much lower chances of developing dementia (also no surprise and also backed up by lots of previous research). But the one that may be more surprising is that doing household chores was one of the most effective ways of reducing chances of developing dementia (reducing it by 21%)!

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but other lines of research have already pointed to this, notably that light physical activity is very beneficial to us human beings. It is also one of the things that has decreased massively over recent decades with all manner of devices taking away, doing, or managing these so-called chores.

This is interesting and the name itself says something about our attitude – it is after all called a chore which has a negative connotation. The reality is that these light activities are just that light activities which keep the body active as it is meant to be. This is in contrast to exercise which requires much higher energy expenditure – in our evolutionary past and up to recent times we may not have done as much strenuous exercise as one might assume but we would have remained constantly active throughout the day.

Other research has supported this showing that light physical activity is surprisingly beneficial. So rather than think of getting out for a run or a session at the gym, we probably should be thinking more of just keeping active. And those household chores shouldn’t be seen as chores but as light activity that contributes to our physical and mental health and can therefore extend our lifespan and make sure that this life span is of a higher quality.

And that’s enough for me I’m off to make myself a cup of coffee and do the washing up!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Jianwei Zhu, Fenfen Ge, Yu Zheng, Yuanyuan Qu, Wenwen Chen, Huazhen Yang, Lei Yang, Fang Fang, Huan Song.
Physical and Mental Activity, Disease Susceptibility, and Risk of Dementia A Prospective Cohort Study Based on UK Biobank.
Neurology, 2022
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200701

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Why Having a Hit Reduces Creativity

Why Having a Hit Reduces Creativity

by | 2022 Aug 8 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

creativity innovation brain

In music this happens often – a band lands a hit but then fails to do anything special again. A well-known occurrence with hits like Tequila in 1958 being the ultimate one-hit wonder for The Champs – there are hundreds of others. But it doesn’t just happen in music, for example, Harper Lee’s hit To Kill A Mocking Bird was her only novel and it took her 55 years to release a sequel.

Why does this happen? Well, there could by many reasons, a lucky punch leading to something really hitting the mark, freak marketing or exposure, the stars aligning to make everything perfect, etc. etc. however, it could also be that creativity itself is impacted by success.

And this is precisely what Markus Baer and Dirk Deichmann of Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, wanted to find out. To do this they went to research cookbooks. which may sound like a strange place to look for creativity, but they are commonly published and bought and tend to be a creative labour of love with few rewards reaped. They found that 50% of those who publish cookbooks failed to publish a second.

They then set up a series of experiments with undergraduates. They were asked to design concepts for a cookbook. They were then randomly given one of two pieces of feedback: one half were told their idea was “highly original and novel,” and the other half were told their idea was “very solid and traditional.” A subgroup of participants was also told that their ideas were “among the ideas most likely to make a big splash in the food community”.

Participants were then given the option to develop the first idea or come up with a new idea. What they found is that those who had been given the best feedback were much less likely to want to develop further new ideas. A second experiment tried to pinpoint why this was the case and they found that there was identity threat i.e. their sense of being a creative individual was put at risk if asked to develop a new idea (they might not or could not live up to expectations).

This shows that one aspect of winning prizes (in whatever form) in creativity is that this creates a sense of identify but there is a risk that comes with this and therefore decreased chances of producing more novel ideas.

This goes some way to explaining one-hit wonders, there are obviously many other factors at play. But in business it raises the stakes of how creative ideas are rewarded. Because as soon as your reward an idea you will likely decrease creative output from this individual – so reward the process, and reward multiple ideas over single ideas.

Note also that creative people like different rewards as I outlined here.

Thanks god I’m not rewarded that often for my ideas!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Dirk Deichmann, Markus Baer.
A recipe for success? Sustaining creativity among first-time creative producers.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 2022
DOI: 10.1037/apl0001019

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The Surprising Results Of How Music Reduces Pain in Your Brain

The Surprising Results Of How Music Reduces Pain in Your Brain

by | 2022 Aug 5 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

pain brain musicWhen you’re in pain any form of relief is welcome – we tend to immediately revert to pain killers but there are many other methods of, at least, reducing pain. I have recently reported on how meditation can reduce pain and the different mechanisms in the brain.

What you may not know, or may have intuitively used, is that music seems to reduce pain, and this has been well-documented dating back to the 1960s. Two new pieces of research just published show how this works in the brain and other influencing factors. Some of this is surprising.

First off, a recent piece by Zhou et al. tried to find the mechanisms in the brain. For this they used mice with inflamed paws and played different types of music or sound. I know you may be thinking that mice surely can’t differentiate between different types of human music, but many animals can differ between harmony and disharmony and respond positively to, for example, classical music. Some music is universal it seems.

These mice were exposed to harmonious music, disharmonious music, and white noise – a simple buzz of noise. And the results were surprising. What they found is that all three types reduced pain in the mice. Simply it seemed like it was noise rather than music. This may sound counter intuitive. We may assume that positive music elicits positive emotions that help to mitigate the negative impacts of pain.

What they found is that the sound activated neurons in a region called the thalamus. The thalamus is like a relay station connecting sensory inputs from the body to the brain. By using up resources in the thalamus there were less neurons that activated to the pain signals coming from the body. So, any sound seems to reduce pain by activating neurons in the thalamus.

So, you might think that simply playing more sounds could reduce pain more. But fascinatingly they also found that the sounds needed only to be played at the level of a whisper. Increasing the volume made no difference to the impact. So it is only sound that makes a difference and not the amount or volume it seems.

Another piece also recently published by Claire Howlin et al. also researched music and pain relief and came to another interesting result. In this researchers exposed participants to two different versions of a musical track. However, in one condition the participants were told they could manipulate various aspects of the music (but the same piece was played as for other participants). Those who thought they had control over the music reported more reduced pain than those just assigned to either group.

This showed that the music type was less important compared to the feeling of control.

So, though we intuitively feel it is music that is good for pain, this shows that it is sound and choice. And when in pain I will certainly choose to listen to music I enjoy – I am also sure some of the positive feelings will also help reduce pain. But that may be an illusion – but the pain reduction is not as the above show.

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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References

Wenjie Zhou, Chonghuan Ye, Haitao Wang, Yu Mao, Weijia Zhang, An Liu, Chen-Ling Yang, Tianming Li, Lauren Hayashi, Wan Zhao, Lin Chen, Yuanyuan Liu, Wenjuan Tao, Zhi Zhang.
Sound induces analgesia through corticothalamic circuits.
Science, 2022; 377 (6602): 198
DOI: 10.1126/science.abn4663

Claire Howlin, Alison Stapleton, Brendan Rooney.
Tune out pain: Agency and active engagement predict decreases in pain intensity after music listening.
PLOS ONE, 2022; 17 (8): e0271329
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0271329

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