Train your Brain (Brain Health)

Train your Brain to makes it healthier

Our brain, always present, always listening, always learning, and obeying each of our orders, solving all our problems, attending all our emotions and desires, remembering our joys and sorrows, our brain is our best friend. However, environmental conditions such as depression, increased stress, drug and substance abuse, neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, learning disabilities and Alzheimer’s, as well as development processes such as aging, can affect the brain's ability to meet, reason, learn or remember.

 Despite our technological advances and increased educational levels, are increasingly observed in all age cognitive impairment or decline in levels of cognitive function, and the latter may be the result of not only the neurological or development, but also of drug intake and drug abuse, obesity and lack of exercise. Because cognitive impairment affects the performance of daily tasks, including productivity at school, at home, and at work, researchers are trying to maintain or improve cognitive function, using enrichment techniques to enhance the experience of learning. To carry out this task, they rely on the abundant scientific evidence showing brain plasticity and cognitive neural level. A form of enrichment is cognitive training or, as sometimes called, brain training. Brain training, systematic training of cognitive ability, aims at conservation, improvement or development of cognitive abilities such as memory, executive control or coordination, in the same way that physical training develops muscle strength or flexibility. Depending on the circumstances, brain training can be applied in isolation or in combination with medications.

The literature on cognitive training recommends that to be most effective, training must be provided with a scientifically sound theoretical basis. Thus, the training process should be solidly grounded in scientific theory of human cognitive development throughout life. For example, a brain training program aimed at older people should consider the theory of processing speed, which provides a general perception and a decrease in processing speed with age, and executive control theory, which establishes a decline in fluency skills such as attention, inhibition, multiple tasks and working memory.

A second requirement for the researchers is that a cognitive training program should always present a personalized approach to learning, so as to take into account the ability of each person to adapt to the training system. Studies based on a training system show that when operating in training adaptive feedback mechanism, cognitive function can be improved significantly. Research indicates that to improve performance and maximize learning through training, feedback should be appropriate for the student, as well as easily applicable to the practice of task.

The main goal of cognitive training is to allow greater ease in performing real-world tasks, such as driving, managing personal finances, taking medications to control or maintain the capacity for social interaction. Because a large number of cognitive processes operate together when performing daily tasks, researchers have posted a third condition, namely, the design of a multi-domain cognitive training to enhance those activities that integrate several cognitive processes (for example, processing speed or memory).

When these three important requirements are conducted with rigor in the development of scientifically validated brain training, a wide range of diverse people were helped greatly. This training program improved cognitive ability in healthy elderly. Improved memory, attention and processing speed in people with Multiple Sclerosis. Improve understanding and reading speed in people with reading difficulties (dyslexia) and improved gait and mobility in people at risk of falls.

The science of brain training is an exciting journey of discovery that leads to intense debate. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated technology and improved interdisciplinary knowledge, we explore what are the best conditions and circumstances to preserve our mental health. In this way we observe the training related to brain activity at the cellular level and macro-cell. We study neurogenesis (the creation of new brain cells) after cognitive training. We discover how neural mechanisms of compensation occur after the formation of the brain (brain regions that have not been damaged learn to carry out the functions supported by brain regions with a deficiency), and this knowledge will be increasing. Today we know that cognitive training increases cognitive reserve capacity and together the accumulated knowledge and experience of an active brain is a powerful protective factor against cognitive decline. In future we will expand this knowledge and be able to introduce in areas of the brain and neurological diseases increasingly concrete.

However, future research on brain training will also address other important issues for humanity. For example, we will investigate whether the human brain can be trained, as well as to preserve and promote cognitive function, for emotional and social resilience. Likewise, we must ask whether the brain can be trained to distinguish between good and evil, peace and violence, justice and injustice. Or if the brain can be trained to like or not to be agree or disagree. The debates in education, philosophy and ethics flourish as the study of the brain go entering the school system and the only goal is no longer optimal mental health and intellectual, but also the assimilation of moral and social values.