
The aging mind: neuroplasticity in response to cognitive training (2013) - qrian
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3622463/
======
salimmadjd
FYI article is from (2013).

I had an interesting personal experience recently. I’ve been trying to learn
Russian from Duolingo and to better enable myself, got a few books on Russian
grammar etc. I read them at night in bed. While I was trying to memorize a
grammatical rule by reading over it a few time. I suddenly had a recollection
from a early childhood. First I had this visceral feeling inside. Very similar
how a smell might trigger a feeling of memory inside. Then I remembered
something very vividly that I had not thought about or had completely
forgotten. It almost felt like while my brain was trying to memorize
something, it reactivated something inside.

I’m now curious if this was a random coincidence or if memorizing something
new will help me keep older memories or reactivate some forgotten ones.

~~~
amelius
I sometimes wonder if such sudden recollections are the brain's mechanism of
saying "do you want me to keep this in memory, or should I throw it away?"

~~~
CuriouslyC
Recalling a memory strengthens it, and creates new associations to call it up,
so probably not.

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ProxCoques
This paper looks at the benefits of "engagement in an environment that
requires sustained cognitive effort". This seems to support the idea that
playing music might be one of the better things you can do to maintain or
improve cognition based on this article:

[https://www.inc.com/john-rampton/the-benefits-of-playing-
mus...](https://www.inc.com/john-rampton/the-benefits-of-playing-music-help-
your-brain-more.html)

(BTW I'm 52 and have played drums since I was 12. I think that counts as being
a musician. But I'm not sure...)

~~~
Ensorceled
Reminds me of the old joke:

What do you call somebody who hangs out with a group of musicians?

A drummer.

~~~
Cognitron
How do you know when a drummer is at the door?

The knocking speeds up.

How do you know when a singer is at the door?

They don't have the key, and they never know when to come in.

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eyeball
Time to bust out the math books and get training I guess. 40 and feeling dumb
as shit lately. Forgetting things I’d never forget before. Trouble
concentrating for many hours at a time like I used to be able to. Etc.

Very suspicious that it’s the statin I started 5 years ago. My doctor says
“don’t believe the statin skepticism. You’re just getting older”. Fahk.

~~~
dsego
Forget the math books, just exercise, get that blood running to your brain.
And megadoses of B vitamins could help.

~~~
vertexFarm
I think successful people in STEM fields have a high risk of assuming they're
competent in other unrelated fields. People shouldn't take medical advice from
people on the internet, even if they say they are a doctor.

Medicine is horrifically complex. Most vitamins also have an absorption limit,
meaning megadoses simply go through your urine or stool. Look at me, doing
exactly as I say not to do and trying to pass off medical information on the
internet. The point of what I'm saying is to be careful believing things in
these threads.

~~~
pnloyd
Medicine seems to be mostly concerned with more tangible problems. Good luck
going to your doctor and complaining of poor cognition as your only symptom.
I've done this before and SSRIs were the only thing offered.

I didn't take SSRIs. I used nutrition / exercise / stress management that I
learned all on the internet and it worked.

I think the correct approach is to verify every single piece of information,
like how you just pointed out your parent comments megadosing is misleading
advice.

I also don't believe blindly trusting your doctor is a good idea either. There
seems to be a huge framentation on nutritional science concenus for example.
Sometimes it's really hard to know what to believe when it comes to our
biologys.

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RaceWon
58 years old here, been into speed sports my entire life.. still am as a
matter of fact. I still have stunning reation times, maybe it's genetic but I
can do more pushups than my age of course I work out. And I don't consider
myself old, I like hop hop, some rap. FWIW.

~~~
whorleater
Isn't convincing yourself you're not old based on your music tastes the first
thing old people do

~~~
padthai
Besides that, isn't hip hop like 40 years old? To put this into context to the
HN audience, Unix is from around the same time.

~~~
yborg
You have to be a little more specific about artists. If you're a big Run DMC
fan, you aren't going to convince anybody how hip you are to hip hop. And if
you call it 'hop hop' you've got a 30 Rock moment :
[https://youtu.be/fiOMbqPHFwo?t=29s](https://youtu.be/fiOMbqPHFwo?t=29s)

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a_w
According to this NHK medical frontiers show [0][1], Japanese researchers
demonstrate that doing daily basic math exercises and reading aloud is good
for the brain. So I built a basic math exercise generator app [2].

[0]
[https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/medicalfrontiers/20170...](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/medicalfrontiers/20170905/2050039/)
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-5urj2WKY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-5urj2WKY)
[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brainmath](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brainmath)

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walterbell
Vision therapy for presbyopia and myopia relies partly on neuroplasticity:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194580)

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myth_drannon
For anyone interested in the topic I suggest reading Norman Doidge's books,
like "The Brain That Changes Itself" .
[http://www.normandoidge.com/](http://www.normandoidge.com/)

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skyisblue
Has anyone tried dual n back? Has it improved your cognitive function?

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raywu
TIL HN audience has a wide range of age

~~~
ak39
What was your initial assumption?

