Hacker Remix

Brain endurance training improves older adults' cognitive, physical performance

107 points by gnabgib 2 days ago | 33 comments

daft_pink 2 days ago

I have an issue with this study. It reads as though the cognitive activity they did throughout the training period is the same as the cognitive test used at the beginning and the end for measurement.

Wouldn’t a person doing the same test for several weeks perform better than a person who experienced the test once? Are we sure they just didn’t get better at the test at the end by practicing vs actually improving cognitive performance that would help them other than taking these specific tests (psychomotor vigilance and stroop).

commandlinefan 2 days ago

I skimmed it but couldn't figure out what "brain endurance training" consists of here. I have heard that multilingual people and musicians never end up with alzheimers, though, so maybe this is an attempt to measure that relationship.

gnabgib 2 days ago

BET is described in a different (linked) paper: Prior brain endurance training improves endurance exercise performance https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1080/17461391.2022.21...

elric 2 days ago

Hate to burst your bubble, but Belgium (where very nearly everyone is multilingual) has roughly the same dementia rate as the UK (where, you know, people tend to just speak English): ~1.69% of the population vs ~1.56%.

Sauce: https://www.alzheimer-europe.org/dementia/prevalence-dementi...

capitainenemo 2 days ago

The studies I've read on bilingualism state that it delays onset by a few years, not that it prevents it. Let me duck for a cite though...

Here's one "Recent meta-analyses report that active bilingualism is related to later onset of symptoms and, thus, diagnosis of dementia by as much as 5–7 years relative to comparable monolinguals, despite brains in both cases accruing increased pathology similarly" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8847162/

It also notes.. "However, as outlined below, simply being bi- or multilingual it is not sufficient for protection against cognitive decline, otherwise, a clear majority of the world’s population would be equally protected (considering that more than half of the world population speaks more than one language; De Houwer, 2021). It is important to keep in mind that only certain types of so-called ′active ′ bilingualism will have the maximum effect upon brain health, i.e., those who are amply exposed to their languages, use them regularly and are otherwise highly engaged in contexts that require linguistic switching."

capitainenemo 2 days ago

(that 5-7 years is "maximum effect" there are others that simply using two to some degree adds a few years of brain health - and that might be mentioned elsewhere in this meta analysis)

fuzzfactor 2 days ago

The older I get some of the things I see make it fairly challenging for the brain to endure . . .

nurettin 2 days ago

I find the whole serious scientific tone amusing because the simplest explanation to their somewhat better performance may be due to having a good mood for having people to socialize with and being attended to.

julianeon 2 days ago

I've noticed that surfing & bodyboarding are (maybe surprisingly) VERY cognitively challenging: watching the waves, moving your body through the water to intersect correctly, timing the launching of your board to coincide with a coming one and then making many micro-movements to stay on it, etc.

I wonder if this is an argument for prioritizing exercises like that, with a big mentally taxing component.

elijaht 2 days ago

This resonates with me - I primarily run and lift weights, neither of which require much quick thinking or movement outside of specific patterns. So while it's not my primary focus, I do try to include a few sessions of rock climbing and pickup soccer in my week.

I've definitely noticed an improvement in my ability to "express" the strength/endurance since I started doing that (more agile, coordinated, sense of how to apply force, general feeling of fitness).

In general I feel like novelty in exercise is understudied/appreciated

hammock 2 days ago

>novelty in exercise

"Cross training"

Although usually it is more about the physical qualities than the neurological ones

agumonkey 2 days ago

Complex balancing, shifting viewpoints, concurrent decision making.. all felt extremely beneficial to stimulate the brain

bubaumba 2 days ago

sure, how about chess? bad news, even champions show no exceptional skills outside of chess world. the same goes for tetris players.

in other word specialized training does not result in general abilities by default. I'm not saying is not beneficial or bad. but athletes and dancers aren't the smartest people for a reason.

sevensor 2 days ago

But what about chess boxing? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing

gloryjulio 2 days ago

Yes, body mind connection is a real attribute in sports science. All kinds of exercises help the brain too

dyauspitr 2 days ago

If you do it for a while it becomes a thoughtless process though. I no longer have to think about when to start paddling to catch the wave, I just know without any active thinking. Same with the balance, my muscles just know what to do.