Restak - Mozarts Brain and the Fighter Pilot

Table of Contents

To my sister, Louise

Introduction

Most of us would like to be smarter. But how do we go about improving our mental prowess? That question isnt easily answered. For one thing, even if we could somehow raise our IQ a few points (as promised by many books and programs currently on the market), such an achievement wouldnt necessarily imply that intellectually wed really be any better off. We all know people with high IQs whose adult accomplishments are less than impressive. A more realistic goal is to enhance our mental functioning in certain key areas that psychologists refer to as cognition.

Briefly, cognition refers to the ability of our brain to attend, identify, and act. More informally, cognition refers to our thoughts, moods, inclinations, decisions, and actions. Included among the components of cognition are alertness, concentration, perceptual speed, learning, memory, problem solving, creativity, and mental endurance. Each of these components of cognition has two things in common. First, each is dependent on how well our brain is functioning. Second, each can be improved by our own efforts. In short, we can make ourselves smarter by enhancing the components of cognition. This book will provide you with methods for enhancing cognition by improving your brains performance.

Regular exercise of your brains cognitive powers is the first step. Most of us now incorporate into our daily life some form of regular physical exercise. We do this because such efforts improve our general physical health and, in addition, make us feel better. A similar situation exists when it comes to exercising our brain. The more we exercise it, the better it performs and the better we feel. In addition, the brain, in contrast to other physical organs, doesnt wear out with repeated and sustained use. On the contrary, the brain improves the more we challenge it. This observation has led to a fundamental principle about the brains operation: use it or lose it.

Think back to a talent or skill that you developed by practice and application but subsequently allowed to languish. Perhaps you were a decent piano player at one time in your life, but later stopped your lessons because you didnt have the time to practice. Or maybe like meyou took chess lessons that enabled you to become a moderately competitive player. Competitive, that is, until you dismissed your instructor, canceled the chess magazine subscriptions, and gradually gave up the game.

In both of these instancesmusic and chesschanges took place in your brain. After the initial establishment of circuits for music and chess, your brain underwent a kind of atrophy as the circuits important for these activities disappeared secondary to disuse.

Fortunately, the brain is highly resilient and has a lifetime memory. Those music and chess circuits can be revived. All thats required is that you once again start playing the piano (or some other instrument), or take up your chess lessons and engage in regular chess matches with some challenging players. This is possible because throughout our lives the brain retains a high degree of plasticity; it changes in response to experience. If the experiences are rich and varied, the brain will develop a greater number of nerve cell connections. If the experiences are dull and infrequent, the connections will either never form or die off. We know this from studies carried out on laboratory animals.

If an animal is provided with a stimulating, challenging environment like a cage filled with toys, that animals brain will show a dramatic increase in the number of nerve cell connections. The animals brain will be heavier with larger nerve cells in some areas than in animals that are reared in barren, comparatively deprived laboratory cages. This increase in brain weight results from an increase in the number of synapseselectrochemical connectionsbetween neurons.

As mentioned, a similar process occurs in the human brain. You can preselect the kind of brain you will have by choosing richly varied experiences. The process starts in childhood and continues until the day you die. Incidentally, this insightthat the brain retains its plasticity across the entire life spanis a comparatively recent one. When I wrote my first book on the human brain in 1979, I didnt hear much from the scientists I interviewed about the plasticity of the mature, adult brain. At that time, most peoplescientists includedbelieved that as the brain matured and formed its nerve cell connections, those connections stayed in place until finally dropping out in old age. Few people thought of the brain as being susceptible to change in its actual structure.

Now, thanks to research like the experiments mentioned above, we know that the brain is much more malleable and subject to change. Indeed, we have no choice about whether or not our brain will change from the way it is today. The real question is: Will we help bring about positive, enriching changes in our brains structure and function, or will we allow it to undergo disuse atrophy?

Its important to remember that our brain holds the key to everything we will ever accomplish. Indeed, the brain is the gateway for all of our sensations and the weaver of all of our experiences. And while most of us are convinced that exercise increases our physical well-being, its less commonly appreciated that the brain also must be exercised; its a dynamic structure that improves with use and challenge. I became convinced of this while researching two previous books on longevity. Simply put, an otherwise healthy older person can reduce his or her risk for developing dementia (formerly referred to as senility) by remaining mentally active. But the benefits of an active, challenged brain arent limited to late in life. Rather, the use it or lose it formula applies to each of us no matter what our age.

Moreover, the healthy exercise of our brains inherent powers is highly pleasurable. Think back to occasions when you scored well on a test or prevailed in a debate or found yourself unable to put down a certain book because of the excitement you experienced while reading it. Your pleasure in each of these instances came from the exercise of your brains cognitive powers. Further, there are specific steps you can take to increase and strengthen these powers. In essence, you can achieve more of the things that you desire by enhancing your brains cognitive functioning.

For instance, memory is probably the most important cognitive function. We are what we remember. If you doubt this, spend a few minutes with people suffering from Alzheimers disease. They no longer remember the most important and noteworthy events in their lives. Not only do they not remember their marriages, but they may no longer even recognize their spouses. Ask them what they once did for a living and your answer may consist of nothing more than a blank stare.

Contrast this to a person endowed with a rich memory, who can recall events and people with clarity and richness. Thanks to memory, he or she can respond to detailed questions about the past and link that past with the present. The ability to recall conversations, family vacations, favorite movies and books, appointments, and social engagements depends on memory.

Yet we also recognize that poor memories arent limited to those who suffer from Alzheimers and other diseases. Some of us are lucky and can remember faces and names from the distant past. Those of us with natural memory gifts have only to be told something once in order to have it readily available for instant recall. Fortunately, for those endowed with a less-efficient memory, steps can be taken to improve it.