By Pam Linn

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New brain cells; who knew?

According to our local fitness guru, who continually adds to her exercise class credits and certifications, mental and physical fitness are inexorably linked.

She has designated February as Brain Fitness Month for the elderly residents of our community. Some, mostly retired professors from nearby MSU, are in various stages of physical frailty but are still sharp as the proverbial tack. But all the ones who are somewhat physically fit also seem to still have all their working brain cells.

So might we extrapolate that one can be limited physically and yet maintain mental acuity? Maybe.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading all this stuff about the brain, most of which has been discovered fairly recently. For years, they told us our brains were “hardwired” and we would start losing brain cells soon after age 30. And then it would be all downhill. Well, that’s not how it is. Through modern technology, scans and such, scientists have learned the brain has plasticity, the ability to replace damaged neurons. Even when a significant amount of brain cells die from stroke or trauma, other parts of the brain can take over lost functions.

The requirements for optimal plasticity include proper vascular function (a healthy heart), cognitive training and mindfulness (paying attention). Doing the same old crossword puzzles doesn’t quite cut it. You need to tackle something entirely new or do something in a completely new way. Learn a new language, a musical instrument, use the opposite hand to write, eat or brush your teeth.

So we’ve had two lessons in foreign languages. Very basic, conversational Spanish, Italian, French and German. The secret to Italian seems to be mastering the inflection while waving your arms around wildly.

The second week was devoted to calligraphy, which absolutely nobody had ever tried before. As hard as I concentrated and as much as I really wanted to master it, I failed miserably. But then it wasn’t a competition; just doing something entirely different that opens up the neural pathways in the brain. Or so they say.

The essentials for brain fitness, according to our guru, are mental stimulation, physical activity and social engagement. The social part is easy: play cards or pool, chat with friends over dinner, volunteer to help others. What’s new is this partnership between mental and physical training.

But didn’t we already know this?

Years ago, I designed my own study about the relationship of exercise and brain function, or at least memory. I used to watch “Jeopardy” on the small TV set attached to the treadmill while exercising at Malibu Health. At first, I thought I did better while walking than I did while lounging on the couch at home. But that didn’t seem very scientific.

So I changed the timing. If I started playing Jeopardy at the same time I started the treadmill, my average of correct responses was about 70 percent. But if I worked out for 30 minutes before the show started, I scored considerably higher. That is after taking into account that I know nothing about certain categories: rap music, pop culture, TV sitcoms etc.

Increased physical activity won’t give you the answers to things you never knew. It will, however, help you retrieve memories you actually have stored somewhere. For me, that would be classical music, literature, Broadway shows, movies, and their stars, dating from the early 1940s to maybe the turn of the century. Not counting remakes with Brad or Matt or Angelina or anyone under the age of 40.

Anyway, the results were quite consistent. If the question rang a bell, I could access the information usually by the time the actual contestant hit the signaling button. Sometimes, I would turn the volume down, in case the contestant was a bit too fast for me. I even tried taping the programs without watching, then replaying them using the remote as a signaling device. That was fun.

Anyway, last night I was watching a PBS program on education. A school principal and a former coach designed a program that completely turned around a failing high school. Students volunteered to work out in the gym before their first period classes, enough to raise their heart rates to optimal levels; then they went directly to their most difficult class (either math or English). The results were extraordinary. Test scores soared, students said they were more interested and more motivated in class. The coach said PE should be mandatory in all schools and should be fitness based instead of sports based. Wow! What a concept.

Well now I’m just trying to keep from losing any more brain cells and learning a few new things. Always the overachiever, I tried to master the Periodic Table of Elements but I hadn’t a clue and no tutor. So I started by memorizing the symbols for the chemical elements. Since I never studied chemistry there’s no memory to retrieve. Let’s see: Au is gold; Fe is iron; K is potassium. Good grief, where’s the sense in this?

Maybe I need to walk on the treadmill first; get the old heart rate up.