Playing, And Even Watching, Sports Improves Brain Function

Date: September 3, 2008

Source: University of Chicago

Summary: Being an athlete or merely a fan improves language skills when it comes to discussing their sport because parts of the brain usually involved in playing sports are instead used to understand sport language, new research shows.

Being an athlete or merely a fan improves language skills when it comes to discussing their sport because parts of the brain usually involved in playing sports are instead used to understand sport language, new research at the University of Chicago shows.

The research was conducted on hockey players, fans, and people who'd never seen or played the game. It shows, for the first time, that a region of the brain usually associated with planning and controlling actions is activated when players and fans listen to conversations about their sport. The brain boost helps athletes and fans understanding of information about their sport, even though at the time when people are listening to this sport language they have no intention to act.

The study shows that the brain may be more flexible in adulthood than previously thought. "We show that non-language related activities, such as playing or watching a sport, enhance one's ability to understand language about their sport precisely because brain areas normally used to act become highly involved in language understanding," said Sian Beilock, Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Chicago.

"Experience playing and watching sports has enduring effects on language understanding by changing the neural networks that support comprehension to incorporate areas active in performing sports skills," she said.

The research could have greater implications for learning. It shows that engaging in an activity taps into brain networks not normally associated with language, which improves the understanding of language related to that activity, Beilock added.

For the study, researchers asked 12 professional and intercollegiate hockey players, eight fans and nine individuals who had never watched a game to listen to sentences about hockey players, such as shooting, making saves and being engaged in the game. They also listened to sentences about everyday activities, such as ringing doorbells and pushing brooms across the floor. While the subjects listened to the sentences, their brains were scanned using functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which allows one to infer the areas of the brain most active during language listening.

After hearing the sentences in the fMRI scanner, subjects performed a battery of tests designed to gauge their comprehension of those sentences.

Although most subjects understood the language about everyday activities, hockey players and fans were substantially better than novices at understanding hockey-related language.

Brain imaging revealed that when hockey players and fans listen to language about hockey, they show activity in the brain regions usually used to plan and select well-learned physical actions. The increased activity in motor areas of the brain helps hockey players and fans to better understanding hockey language. The results show that playing sports, or even just watching, builds a stronger understanding of language, Beilock said.

Joining Beilock in this research were Howard Nusbaum, Professor of Psychology at the University; Steven Small, Professor of Neurology and Psychology at the University; and Beilock's Ph.D. students Ian Lyons and Andrew Mattarella-Micke.

Article retrieved from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080901205631.htm

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Young Musicians Reap Long-Term Neuro Benefits

People who played instruments as children responded a bit quicker to complex speech sounds as adults, even if they had not played an instrument in many years. Erika Beras reports

Feb 22, 2014 |By Erika Beras

Those piano lessons you endured as a child, and those hours your parents made you practice, may benefit you in your later years. Even if you haven’t played in decades. So finds a study in the Journal of Neuroscience. [Travis White-Schwoch et al., Older Adults Benefit from Music Training Early in Life: Biological Evidence for Long-Term Training-Driven Plasticity] 

As we age, our response to fast-changing sounds slows down—which affects how we understand speech—and the world around us. But people who played instruments when they were young respond a bit quicker to such complex sounds. And the more years study subjects played instruments, the faster their brains responded to speech sound.

The researchers say that early acoustic experience may train the central auditory system—and that the changes are retained throughout life.

Previous studies of musicians have revealed that years of musical training may offset cognitive decline. This latest analysis shows that even if all you did was reluctantly pound a piano or blow a horn 40 years ago, you may still be reaping neurological benefits.

Article retrieved from: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/young-musicians-reap-long-term-neuro-benefits/

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Debunking 10 Brain Fitness and Brain Training Myths

Debunking 10 Brain Fitness and Brain Training Myths during Brain Awareness Week 2013

By: Alvaro Fernandez

In honor of Brain Aware­ness Week 2013 let’s debunk ten myths about brain fit­ness and brain train­ing that remain sur­pris­ingly popular.

Top 10 brain fit­ness and brain train­ing myths, debunked:

Myth 1. Genes deter­mine the fate of our brains.
Fact: Life­long brain plas­tic­ity means that our lifestyles and behav­iors play a sig­nif­i­cant role in how our brains (and there­fore our minds) phys­i­cally evolve.

Myth 2. We are what we eat.
Fact: We are what we do, think, and feel, more than what we eat.

Myth 3. Med­ica­tion is the main hope for cog­ni­tive health and enhance­ment.
Fact: Non-invasive inter­ven­tions can have com­pa­ra­ble and more durable ben­e­fits, and are also free of side effects.

Myth 4. There’s noth­ing we can do to beat Alzheimer’s dis­ease and cog­ni­tive decline.
Fact: While noth­ing has been shown to pre­vent the pathol­ogy of Alzheimer ’s dis­ease, there is abun­dant research show­ing we can delay the onset of symp­toms for years –a very mean­ing­ful out­come which is often overlooked.

Myth 5. There is only one “it” in “Use it or Lose it”.
Fact: The brain is com­posed of a num­ber of neural cir­cuits sup­port­ing a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive, emo­tional, and exec­u­tive func­tions. Using or exer­cis­ing just one (like “mem­ory”) is unlikely to be of much help.

Myth 6. Brain train­ing can help reverse your brain age 10, 20, or 30 years.
Fact: “Brain age” is a fic­tion. Some brain func­tions tend to improve, and some decline, as we get older. And there is con­sid­er­able vari­abil­ity across indi­vid­u­als, which only grows as peo­ple get older.

Myth 7. Brain train­ing doesn’t work.
Fact: Brain train­ing, when it meets cer­tain con­di­tions, has been shown to improve brain func­tions in ways that enhance real-world outcomes.

Myth 8. Brain train­ing is pri­mar­ily about videogames.
Fact: Real, evidence-based brain train­ing includes some forms of med­i­ta­tion, cog­ni­tive ther­apy, cog­ni­tive train­ing, and biofeed­back. Inter­ac­tive media such as videogames can make those inter­ven­tions more engag­ing and scal­able, but it is impor­tant to dis­tin­guish the means from the end, as obvi­ously not all videogames are the same.

Myth 9. Heart health is brain health.
Fact: While heart health con­tributes sig­nif­i­cantly to brain health, and vice versa, the heart and the brain are each cru­cial organs with their own set of func­tions and pre­ven­tive and ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tions. What we need now is for brain health to advance in a decade as much as car­dio­vas­cu­lar health has advanced over the last sev­eral decades.

Myth 10. As long as my brain is work­ing fine, why should I even pay atten­tion to it?
Fact: For the same rea­sons you should add gas to your car and change the oil reg­u­larly – so that it works bet­ter and per­forms longer.

Article retrieved from: http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2013/03/11/debunking-10-brain-fitness-and-brain-training-myths-during-brain-awareness-week-2013/

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